


She's strong as steel (but broken inside)

by Misalcdc



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aden is just way too cute, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, F/M, Lexa is a hot detective, M/M, Slow Burn, Superman AU, mamabear!Lexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6680068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misalcdc/pseuds/Misalcdc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark El had no more than one day of been born when her planet was destroyed through space. Fortunately, her father, Jake Jor-El, had gotten enough time to plan a way out of there before Krypton was drowned by their own inhabitant’s deeds. And on a pod made up for only one person, she and her father ended up on another planet. On earth. She had less than a year when she was named as Clarke Griffin, daughter of Jake and Abby Griffin. A small baby who had a lot of trouble to breath, a small baby who turned over the years into a common little girl.<br/>However, Clarke Griffin was never an ordinary girl.</p><p>OR</p><p>Things are good for Lexa, until a bunch of people started to vanish and an alien is thrown in her arms – not literally.</p><p>PS: English is not my first language and this is unbeta. I'm sorry for any mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Well, hello!  
> This is my first fanfic in english and I really hope that you guys enjoy it. I already have a few more chapters made and I know more or less where I want to go with this fic. But opinions are always welcome!  
> Like I said on the summary, this is unbeta'd and I'm sorry for any mistakes. 
> 
> Another thing, in this first chapter Lexa will not show up, but she will in the next.

Clarke changes from one foot to another restlessly and looks at the queue in front of her. How a small market in the middle of nowhere can get a line, Clarke will never find out. She stops looking at the man's head in front of her to stare outside, Clarke can see her father's black truck from where she is. Now, the car owner is probably making important calls and sometimes Clarke would like him to just talk to her about it and stop being so overprotective. Of course, Clarke is very grateful to have such a father, but under the condition that they are, he should stop trying to hide everything from her.

They already had been in this situation before, when he couldn't be completely honest with her. But now, _now_ he no longer need. Or at least that was what she thought.

Clarke remembers when they lived a simpler life in a small farm of Arkadia, Kansas. Everything at that time was easier. She was a normal girl, who wasn't different from anyone else and had friends. Her dad was just a farmer. And Clarke _still_ had a mother. But then on a Sunday night, her dad woke her up and made her get dressed in a hurry. Claiming they would go for a surprise trip, and Clarke could still be a child, but she knew deep down that it wasn't a surprise trip. Her father was sweating and nervous, she can still remember the bruise on his face, this fact alone made the little blonde hurry up, because she _never_ saw her father get hurt. She had asked where her mom was and her dad, Jake Griffin, had shaken his head and said that she would find them later. Clarke didn't believe it for a second, but she did go, obviously. Because she was only a little child and he was her dad.

After that, they traveled in places that Clarke had only seen on television. Never staying in one place for too long and after a while Clarke noted that her mom would not show up. At first, she cried most of the days and didn't say a word to her dad. Because in her head all of this was his fault, and he had _never_ denied that.

At ten, the girl began to feel everything around her change. They were living in National City at the time, Clarke was starting to get used to the city. She was beginning to be friends with some boys who had called her to play soccer. She was over the moon, because it wasn't every day that someone wanted to be her friend. Usually, the blonde has alone and sometimes listening when others - mostly girls - said about how much she was weird.

At first, it was when she started to feel her eyes getting hot when someone angered her. But not hot, like when she cried. It was a much stronger warmth and she could feel _something_ wanting to jump out of them. Until one day in the classroom, she began to see everything in a whole new level. Clarke knew exactly what she was seeing, she just didn't want to accept. Bones and more bones. The blonde could no longer distinguish one person from another, because that was the only thing she saw and a vibration in her ear made her lock her jaw, scared. She had opened and closed her eyes thousands of times trying to erase those images from her memory, but she simply couldn't.

She wanted her dad and her mom. And only thinking that her mother is no longer with her, made her eyes burn with a tremendous force. She had run from the room, trying not to open her eyes and see people turning into skeletons, she could hear the teacher and her colleagues shouting her name, shouting _so_ close to her ear that it hurt. It hurt so much.

This was one of the first days that her dad had been honest with her. Jake tried to explain in a way for her not get more afraid about how the two of them are not from Earth and how she was different. But not a bad different, and she's human as much as Kryptonian. From that day on, Clarke began to learn to control her powers, and yes Clarke was still a bit afraid of losing control and use her powers unrestrainedly, but after a while using her powers, she began to feel she was born to do that. She had also begun to discover more about Krypton, she had been so impressed about the animals and the structures there. Her father taught her about the places from there, about the advanced science in there. When Jake told her how their planet was destroyed, she felt herself in mourning for a place she had never been before, Jake had said it was okay to feel this way, because it's part hers as well. And every day she felt so sad for not having known her true home, because here on Earth she'll _never_ have one. She is already conformed to it, she’s not part of this planet, even though her dad denies every single time.

The attendant clears her throat making Clarke return to the living world. The blonde blinks a few times, sometimes she gets so lost in her thoughts that doesn't notice her surroundings. She definitely need to stop doing this. The blonde opens an apologetic smile before walking up to the woman and put the two full baskets at the counter. It had been four days that father and daughter were traveling without any stop, her dad constant impatience to finding a secure place made they travel without actually having a place in sight. Clarke even tried to persuade him to get her a cell phone to search, Jake nearly pulled her head off at the suggestion. It's because of this that she's worried, because he had been like this just once. On the same day they started running.

After paying the woman and grabbing the bags with food, Clarke leaves the small grocery store walking to the truck to put what she had bought in the passenger seat. Clarke thinks for a second if she should go after her dad, or just start to eat something. She was quite hungry actually, after three days without stopping she had already done with all kinds of food that she likes. Not to mention that she had spent one day in a tense silence on the car, because she refused to chat with her dad. But, of course, stay here and eat will not make her achieve answers. Obviously, this would apply only if she were a normal human being, which she definitely isn't. Clarke is almost opening a pringles when she hears the unmistakable sound of bullets being fired. In a second, Clarke was already alert looking at the gas station and to the store, she wasn't the only one to have heard, she can see a few men from the gas station looking at something that is out of her reach. Clarke suppress her fear that this has something to do with her dad, she can feel the panic rising with every bullet been fired. But Clarke remains fixed in her place, because one thing that her dad taught her was to go to the opposite side of this kind of situation. Even if all cells of her body wants her to do something, she only heard it _once_.

The young Kryptonian narrow her eyes getting a broader view of the fight's place. It isn't too far from here, actually. When she and her dad was on the road, she had seen the small motel, even though it seemed like those motels from horror movies. Clarke had suggested her father that they should spend the night there, because honestly she was getting tired of sleeping in the passenger seat. Now, the motel is surrounded with black cars and she can see some men with armored clothes and weapons, but she cannot see her dad in there. She doesn't know whether to be more worried or happy. Her indecision was brief, because after a few seconds Clarke can identify her father's unmistakable navy jacket in the hands of a man.

Clarke doesn't think twice about letting her legs guide her to the motel, but between her and her father there is an army of armed men. Unfortunately, before she can choose what the best tactic in this situation, the blonde can see her father being dragged out of the motel. Clarke has to remember how to breathe, because this is _so_ not happening. Her dad is the strongest man she has ever seen. She squeezes her hands tightly to not let tears come out, because this can only be some kind of distraction and they'll get out of this. They always manage. Clarke keeps looking at her father's face, now pale. Clarke could hear the conversation between the man holding her dad and some guys in there, but her focus is still on Jake's face, waiting for him to open his blue eyes and wink at her, because he could get out of this and still soothe her daughter, because it was always like this.

So _why_ he's not opening his eyes?

Clarke wait, wait and _wait._

Until wait is no longer an option as she watches they start to put her dad in a van. The girl takes a few steps back and look around. No one is paying attention to her, that's good.

"Stop! He's not with us." A brunette, probably around her age, is walking with quick steps to where Jake is being taken and Clarke bites her lip hard. Because everything is getting more complicated, she has no idea if these people know who they are or not. Behind the brunette, a boy is trying to grab her hand and keep saying: _"It's not our problem, O!"_.

In an instant, the men are with their arms raised and pointed at them. Clarke glance from her father to the two teenagers, standing with theirs hands up. She doesn't know what to do, she has never been in a situation like this. Clarke could very well run to her father and take him from there quickly, but if her father helped these two teenagers, it is because they are important. Because he had never done anything like this, even if he wanted.

“Arrest the meta-humans, now!” Clarke frowned, she had heard about these ' _meta-humans'_ on television, but she had not paid that much attention. Things seemed to speed up from one second to another, the young man with his hands up were beginning to create fire with his own hands and shooting at the armored men. Chaos was the only word that Clarke could portray about this moment, on one side a guy releasing fire and another machine guns being fired. Clarke needed to take her dad from here _now_ , even if it means exposing her powers. The young Kryptonian can feel her powers on the surface, wanting to explode at once. Wanting to do something, _anything_ , as if it had its own will. Then she ran as she had never run before, but her focus wasn't only her dad. Jake once said that some humans can be unpredictable, that humans can be volatile and change from one instant to the next, but he had also said that some humans are foolishly _bravest_.

And this girl in the middle of an army? She _definitely_ is one.

Before the brunette was hit by the gunfire, Clarke already had her arms around the girl's hips and with her super speed, the blonde took her into the motel again. The Kryptonian didn't stay within the location to see the wide eyes of the brunette, she had to go back there, take the Flaming Boy from that place and save her dad. Yeah, she _sure_ can do it. From where she is, Clarke can see a few men circling the boy into flames, she might as well grab and put him inside the motel with the brunette. However, the fact that these guys have managed to win from her father into a fight, worries her enough to leave this meta-human help her against these humans. Clarke takes a few steps backward getting enough boost to jump from the first floor's window and jump on one of the guys who was getting close to Flaming Boy. She manages to hit her foot in man's jugular and don't wait to see if he had fainted or not, she had counted a total of fifteen men and one more counting with the guy who is holding her father as if his life depended on it.

Clarke had never fought against humans, only against her father. One might say that that would be plenty experience, but Jake _always_ let her win, so it never has been a fair fight. Therefore, she hesitates before getting close to another human, because a stronger hit can make a huge damage, she really doesn't want that. Clarke falters for a second and can already feel a small object crashing into her shoulder, the blonde doesn't need to look at her shoulder to know that just made a tiny hole in her hoodie. And she doesn't hesitate any longer. With her super speed the Kryptonian disarms most of the men. It wasn't something very hard actually. It was like playing chess, when she has to knock down a couple of pieces. She felt a little bad for thinking about humans as chessmen but she had to think of something to not be fixed in fact that her father _still_ has not woken up.

"Retreat! We don’t have more bullets against Kryptonians." This draws Clarke's attention; her father had told her that there was nothing that could hurt them. She locks her jaw and connects her fist in the man's belly, who has attempting to follow his superior's order. Because _no_ , they'll not hurt her dad and get away with it. Because just think there is a weapon against her kind, means it has a chance to her father being dead. And Clarke cannot imagine it, so she keeps beat up these humans, who cannot leave them alone for just a few months. Clarke's so angry, she doesn't know with who exactly she's angry. Probably her father, who always said to not get into situations that would expose her powers, but here they are. She is angry at these humans too, most of her anger is directed at them. They are no match for her, really, and most of them tried to use their weapons, which doesn't not work since she is bulletproof.

Clarke can see some of them running away, entering in their vans and running like cowards, she can also see her dad being carried away. Clarke makes her way to Jake, removing anyone who in her path along. She doesn't see Flaming Boy, and she really hopes that he got away from here safe. The girl lets out a sigh seeing her dad opening his eyes slowly.

" _No_ , Clarke, no." Jake says with his faint voice, he keeps saying it and start to become increasingly weak, his eyes goes towards the man who is taking something of a suitcase. Clarke doesn't care; she just wants to get her dad far away from here. Because he's alive and as long as he stays that way, the two can overcome it. She doesn't see the man beside Jake pointing a rather strange gun at her, she doesn't see the projectile with a phosphorescent light coming toward her, she just feels the burn on her arm a second later. Her legs falter and Clarke tries, and _tries_ to keep looking at her dad, losing sight of him. The young girl tries to get up, and didn't even know she was on the ground to begin with, but everything is so blurred. Her eyelids are heavy and she wants to go after her dad, but the darkness is taking over of her vision and finally when Clarke let her control slip through her fingers her dad was no longer there.

 

* * *

 

"For God's sake, Octavia, we don't even know her!" It was the first thing Clarke heard after all this time unconscious, the voices were quite unfamiliar to the blonde, she tried to concentrate on to find out where the hell she was. The young Kryptonian remember being in the car with her dad scolding herself because of her desire to sing the radio's songs. Then everything suddenly came. She remembers getting astonished watching her dad being led away, remembers helping a teenager and also remember being weak enough to let her dad been take away. Oh, God, her _dad_.

Clarke rises quickly and feels her shoulder burn with every little effort, but she doesn't let it stop her. She needs to find out where she is and then go after her dad. The place where she was brought just seems like a doll's room, she gets a little frightened by the number of rag dolls beside the bed, the girl also gets a little bit more startled by the katana – which seems really real – hung adjacent to a book shelf.

Her legs are still wobbly and Clarke has to lean on the wall to continue making her way to the door. She tries to make as little noise as possible, but her shoulder is throbbing and she has no idea if there is a "bullet" inside. The young Kryptonian's not used to it, she in her entire life had never been hurt, nor scratches, let alone bullets. As a child Clarke believed to be very lucky to not get hurt when she did fall on some nasty places. Now, Clarke thinks that she has never been a lucky one. And, heck, Clarke thought she was indestructible. She had never felt this feeling in her life, this feeling of being too weak, too small. But what makes her heart tighten and the urge to cry bigger, it's to know that her dad is out there with those men. And only God knows how many more of those weapons they have.

She tries not to think about it, she doesn't have the luxury of thinking about it. Because thinking about it makes Clarke's little mind go to dark places, places that had not gone since her mom no longer wanted her and her dad. Ever since she was rejected by one of the two people whom she loves most – yes, _loves_ , because unlike Abby, Clarke cannot just stop having feelings so easily. No matter how hard she tries.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" The boy's voice makes the blonde's stiff and Griffin ignores her unsteady legs to face the boy, she can quickly recognize him as Flaming Boy. So it was likely that the two teenagers did help her when she had passed out in the motel's parking lot. "I'm talking to you, weirdo."

Clarke rolls her eyes due to the _nickname_ , it wasn't the first time that she was called that way, but the girl believes she'll never get used to these nicknames.

"I think it's pretty clear what I'm doing, Flaming Boy." Clarke replies with her voice raspier than she had anticipated, she wonders briefly how long she had slept. The boy seems to like what she had said since his feature seems to soften. He also seems to be reflect on something, looking down the hall they are, he seems decide something.

"The exit is that way." The young man points to a door a bit far from where they are, Clarke nods before continuing and trying not to lean on the wall. "You know," The young man keeps talking and Clarke frowns, not understanding what else he has to say. He appears hesitant for a few seconds, "If you don't have a place to go, you can stay here."

"No, thanks." As much he is right, Clarke had never met a human that gives something without wanting anything in return. She had saved Octavia, Clarke assumed that was the brunette's name, and in return they helped her until she woke up. The debit is already paid, plus she has a dad to find. And Clarke will not rest until she finds him, even if she has to kick some asses along the way.


	2. Baddies everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, hello again guys.  
> Thanks those who have left kudos and bookmarks! Seriously, thank you.  
> In this chapters we have new faces, yaay. And Clarke found out that living on her own is not something easy, but no need to go nuts. She will definitely take care of her health, even if she has to steal from a cop.

The sound of the wind whipping against leaves and birds singing makes Clarke a little more on peace. She still remembers having to wake up at five AM listening to the same sounds, well, the only difference is that it had more animal's sounds and she slept in a bed, not on a park bench. Clarke remembers waking up all those days with a smile on her face and running out of her house to see her dad taking care of the animals. It was such a simple thing, and she never in her whole life would want to go back in time like right now. She'd give anything to go back.

The girl stretches trying to get the sleep out her body, and gets up from the bench where she had slept on the previous day. After leaving the two stranger's house yesterday, Clarke had wandered around the city and after a while she found out to be in Polis, thanks to a newspaper. The blonde had already been in Polis once, when her parents had taken her to meet one of them good friends. The irony is not lost for her, since these "friends" were the reason they started to run away, and not to mention that one of these "friends" is the new husband of her mother. Just thinking about it makes her nauseous. Thinking that the loving, kind, motherly Abby Griffin for whom Clarke spent _years_ mourning, actually is a wife with three kids. Obviously, Clarke had to investigate about her former mom, and she had never talked to her dad about this. Talk about her mother was always a very delicate matter with Jake. Clarke found quite a coincidence that she had end up in the same city that Abby lives. She tries not to dwell on this, she doesn't want to keep thinking about her former mom, not now that she just lost her dad.

Clarke kinda already knows where to go from here, she knows that she and her dad had stopped at a store not far from Polis, then it should not be too far from the motel where those crazy dudes took her dad. She needs to go back there and search the place to see if they left something behind. Furthermore, this was her only lead and it's not like she could continue sleeping on this park bench and starving until think of something else.

"Ugh." Clarke makes a grimace thinking that she didn't eat for a whole day and thinks if she should go back to the store where her dad and her left the car and get it for her, she does not know how to drive and neither is with the car keys, but maybe she can get the purchased food. What she bought will last a while, she just hopes it will be enough until she finds Jake.

She doesn't really know what to do, she had _never_ been on her own before.

" _Ahem_." Clarke frown looking at the reason for her disruption of her thoughts. A little boy is on her side, and he's looking at Clarke with a disinterest face. It's not really that what makes Clarke raise her eyebrow even more, but rather the little boy's pose.  He stands with his hands behind his back, and his posture is so straightforward that makes Clarke open a small smile. "You’re in my spot."

"Uh," Clarke looks around searching for the boy's parents, in fact, there is no one in here yet. She assumes that is still too early, "I didn't know that this was your _spot_. Perhaps I was with my clumsy self and didn't see your name in here." Clarke continues with a playful tone, she always had a soft spot for kids. And even though she was an only child, the blonde always thought how it would be like if she had a little brother or sister. Right now, she is so glad to be an only child, she wouldn't know how to explain about their shitty situation.

"Perhaps, or maybe you didn't search anything and now you’re making a fool of yourself."

"Wow," Clarke lets out a little chuckle, "You keep repeating this words to tell everyone that steals your spot?"

"Mockery is not the product of a strong mind." The little boy says with his feature absent of any emotion. Clarke tilts her head narrowing her eyes at the kid, he probably doesn't have more than eight years. But his attitude makes him appear to be slightly older, he has an average height and his attitude seems to contribute in it, blond hair quite messy, and blue eyes. After minutes glaring at each other, the blonde can see the edges of his mouth quivering.

"You're good, kid." Clarke laughs and points to the boy’s posture. "You almost got me."

"I don't know such a thing." The boy says releasing a giggle, but soon he covers his mouth and with his eyes wide he says, "I really shouldn't be entering into a conversation with a stranger."

Clarke raises her eyebrow, amused about how this kid is so formal. His parents must be something from another world, then. "Well, you don't seem to care that I'm in your place. So that makes us a bit more than just strangers, right?"

The boy seems to consider this for a moment, but before he could respond with some smart remark a voice cut out their conversation. "Aden, please do not start picking on other people." Clarke lets out a little chuckle to what the woman walking towards them said, but soon enough her laughter dies as she stares at another woman. She must've her twenties, her face looks like it was sculpted by Michelangelo himself with her magnificent jaw and cheekbones, her brown hair is held back with many layered braids, her height is average, slim and _very_ well appreciated by Clarke's eyes. Honestly, Clarke doesn't know if she could stop staring at woman even if wanted, and even if this makes Clarke a bit awkward with her wrinkled clothes and messy hair.

"But I didn't do anything." Aden complains breaking the two girl's eye contact. For a second Clarke had forgotten that there was another person in here, and says to herself that is probably because it's been a while that she sees someone so beautiful. _Nothing_ to do with those green eyes staring right back at her. The little boy continues to speak completely aloof to what he just did, "In fact, she was the one who stole my spot."

"I, uh, sorry?" Clarke stammers changing her gaze from the woman to the boy. The young Kryptonian doesn’t understand how from one moment to the next she turned completely embarrassed, she believes it has something to do about how the girl _keeps_ glaring at her. "It's because this is like the _only_ bench on this park that has a tree below, and last night rained, so..." Clarke crinkles her face, it was not _exactly_ that what she meant to say, but the brunette still watching her and Clarke is getting a little nervous. And the girl is now blinking as if having some enlightenment and,  _oh_ , Clarke would understand that way too."Not that I am homeless, and nothing against homeless... I just, eer, like to camp."

If Aden noticed her change of attitude he says nothing about it, Clarke's glad for that. And, well, he looks a little confused with Clarke's ramble. Clarke would too, and really Clarke should have been leaving Polis right now. She would probably already be in the motel if she had not started talking with the little boy.

"Well, I gotta go." Clarke says with a grin getting up from the seat and taking the jacket that she had put as a pillow. "It was nice to meet you, kid." The blonde turns to look at the brunette and waves clumsily and quickly mumbles, " _And you too_." Tomorrow, Clarke will blame her lack of social skills on her dad, today she will just be with an extreme embarrassment.

"It was nice to meet you too. Goodbye, spot thief." Aden says with a smile; Clarke is starting to believe that maybe the boy is not seeing how she is embarrassed.

"Aden, please do not be rude." The girl scolds the boy with a glance, and returns to look at Clarke. "I'm sorry for his attitude, his other aunt pampers him way too much."

"It's okay, I get it." Clarke shakes her hand, as if it was no big deal. "My name is Clarke, by the way. And you should definitely write your name on the bench so no one steals it again."

They say briefly 'see you around'. Clarke doesn't know if she will go back to Polis, after going to the motel. She still didn't decide anything. What she will do after going there, she will probably have to look for a place to sleep and money. How she will get, Clarke has no clue, _again_ she never had to worry about that sort of thing. Before Clarke could turn to leave, the brunette slightly behind Aden seems to come out from some kind of trance, because Clarke definitely will not admit that maybe the other girl was staring at her too. The girl takes a few steps forward quickly, raising her hand as if to hold Clarke's wrist, but thought better of it and lowers her hand.

"Have we've met before?" The braided girl asks curiously and something more that Clarke cannot identify.

"Uh, no... I don’t think so." The young Kryptonian answers slowly, her eyes narrowing unable to take her blue's ones from the green's ones. Now more closely, Clarke can see the girl's green eyes more easily, even more with the sun against the brunette's face. And if Clarke was not memorized before, she definitely is now. Clarke also feels an odd feeling that she had seen the girl before. What's weird, she would totally remember someone like her, but before Clarke even be able to think better about it, the brunette is already with a stoic's expression. And Clarke can see from where Aden capture his unique expressions.

"I'm sorry then. I must’ve confused myself." The woman returns to her position putting her arm over Aden’s shoulder. Clarke nods turning to leave the park.

 

* * *

 

As Clarke had predicted, arriving at the motel was somewhat really quick. She just had to use her increased vision while flying and search the place. Fortunately, no one was there and Clarke knew she should get a little apprehensive about this fact. But, seriously, Clarke has to figure out who were those guys, she will not stand still waiting for someone to show up at this crap motel – now, apparently abandoned. And, yeah, she's a little anxious, but don’t blame on her, Clarke just wants to find her dad. The young Kryptonian walking through the parking lot looking for anything, anything _at_ _all_. The place is deserted, no cars, no bullets thrown on the floor, nothing that can prove that something happened there on that day. She’s impressed and angry at the same time, it's like they were not even here.

The blonde makes her way into the motel, everything is turned off there, as if not functioning for years. Good that this is not a problem for Clarke, and she can find the adapter quickly through her x-ray vision. The girl admits that master the x-ray vision was a bit tricky, probably because the first time she used the power she had been terrified, and didn't want to use after the school's incident. But after a few conversations with Jake, the girl saw the need to train or her powers would keep bugging her. Believe it or not, she managed master the x-ray vision of skeleton’s images before the images with full colors. Clarke was so _ecstatic_ that day, she remembers that she made her dad take her out to celebrate. Since that day, they began to celebrate when Clarke started to keeping tabs on some of her powers, instead of being as she managed high grades in classes, or when Clarke did win something on some sport that she attended.

After a while scanning the place, Clarke becomes tired of her own slowness, and seeing that still has a lot rooms for look. It would not hurt anyone if she increased the pace, right? So, that's exactly what she did. Sometimes, she is so grateful for her powers, now it’s one of them. Even though it was they who put her and her dad in this abyss in the first place. Clarke is scanning a room when she sees a small object thrown in one of the closets, Clarke's heart beats a little louder when she recognizes as her father's cell. The first thing Griffin sees after unlock the cell makes her heart ache, on the small screen is a picture of her and her dad. She remembers that day with a sad smile on her face, it was the day that her dad was teaching her how to swim. Jake's known for his endless patience, but that day Clarke had managed exhausted all his patience. It was because Clarke didn't want to learn how to swim, besides it was not as if they had a pool in their farm. She thought it would be stupid to have to learn something that would have no purpose, but the main reason was because Clarke was just afraid to swim in the ocean.

It goes without saying that it was a very long day.

Clarke shakes her head staring at the ceiling, because _no_ , she will not start grieving for someone who is out there, probably looking for a way to return to his daughter. And, oh God, he's probably blaming himself too. Before Clarke could go deeper on this thought, the sound of shouting makes her stay alert. She places the phone safely in her pocket and goes toward the hallway. Clarke didn’t even need to see through the walls, because at the end of the hall are the two teenager that helped her, but they are not alone. There's two more people with them, one of them looks particularly nonchalant.

"What the heck you did, Dax?" The boy, who had seen her leave the house the previous day, says, his voice slightly enraged. He seems a little concerned looking everywhere, as if at any minute something would show up. The other guy, presumably Dax, has a sardonic smile in his face.

"This is not personal, Bellamy, but Shumway said he could get me out of this."

"What Shumway has to do with this? He should be on _our_ side!" Bellamy replies and his eyes widen seeing the arm of his old friend start to turn into solid steel. "You know that the Director will not let it go. The minute they know we came here, you'll be the only one left. And you know he will use every little resources to find out what happened, Shumway will not be able to –"

"Shut up, Bellamy!" The blond yells and in one motion he manages to grab other girl near him. "You put us at risk when you decided to drop everything and run after your darling little sister. Now, We're all on the radar of those motherfuckers."

Bellamy locks his jaw looking from Dax to Raven, the girl doesn’t not seem impacted by the fact that the big man was holding her. In short steps the boy starts approaching his sister, he did not want her to do something without thinking, like she did a couple of days ago. "Let her go, Dax. She got nothing to do with it."

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry, Bellamy." The boy chuckles squeezing the girl's arm. "Here I thought she would be the bait if something happened. My bad, _boss_." The last word comes out in a sarcastic way.

"What, Bellamy?!" Octavia shouts, her brow furrowing in bewilderment and anger at the same time, and could hardly believe her brother do something like that. _Well, it would not be the first time_ , she thinks bitterly. _And here I thought he had changed_.

"Not now, Octavia." The boy with curly hair stands in front of his sister and returns his gaze to Dax, he knows he cannot win the other boy. In all the training sessions they ended up in a draw, but now he has to think about his sis. She will _always_ come first. "Do whatever you think is the best, Dax. _But_ we both know that we’ll get out of here alive, and you’ll be hunted by two institutions."

Raven rolls her eyes and suppress the urge to release a pain’s sound, she’ll not show this troglodyte how much this is hurting. "Tell one of your geeks boys to withdraw this shit," She points to a silver bracelet on her wrist and continues with a flat tone, "And we can take care of this Neanderthal. No need to go all manipulative."

"It's not happening, Raven." Bellamy replies quickly shaking his head and with a little wave a fireball is centered in his palm. "Let's settle this. Just you and me, Dax."

Octavia pulls older brother’s and says worried, "She's right, Bell. You can't just let her die..."

With an amused smile the boy states pointing to the wristband, "He will not do it. Because if he does, everyone at the base will know what is going on. That thing monitors her. Monty is a genius, right? What I mean, if you couldn't keep up Dax, is that they must already be coming over here."

Across the hall, Clarke is having a serious internal battle. The young Kryptonian could very well get out, she has already managed to find the only thing that seems significant in this place, and she owes nothing to these strangers. Because, yes, she helped them to deal with those guys the other day and they helped her in return. Clarke should be looking for her father and not saving other’s people lives. So _why_ is she thinking twice about leaving them here? Not to mention that they seem to be able to look after themselves, but she has this stupid feeling pounding down at her head, telling her to get in the middle of this fight and make this jerk made of steel release this girl and beat the crap out of him.

A short break in their conversation happens after what Bellamy has claimed and Dax seems a bit hesitant, but his next words makes Clarke’s teeth creak. "Well, the only thing that has changed is that I need to finish the three of you before they get in here."

Clarke _needs_ to decide what to do fast, because remains paralyzed will not help her, let alone the strangers. So, she takes a deep breath and makes exactly the opposite of what Jake taught her, she rushes straight to the mess. And, yeah, she will likely regret later on, but now is so not the time for regret thoughts. The young Kryptonian is able to reach Raven at same time that Dax attempts to throw the brunette girl forcefully into a wall, she gets the girl and runs to where Flaming Boy is, and with the girl safe in her arms, Clarke sighs relieved of the choice made. She would never want to see anyone get hurt, if she could avoid that.

"I know I have _that_ kind of impression on people, but could you please let go of me?" Raven says blandly with a raised eyebrow. Clarke let go of the girl's waist rather quickly, feeling her cheeks heat up over the girl's stare. Clarke returns her gaze to Dax, seeing the man getting from confused to angry in seconds, and cannot stop herself from getting a second to staring at the man becoming in plain steel. Gods, _how_ did she missed that humans could do this kind of shit?

Bellamy and Octavia are facing Clarke with theirs eyes wide, not understanding from where she came from. But this seems to be the quite common, since the last time she appeared it was the same way.

"It looks like you're outnumbered, maybe you should give up and spare yourself?" Clarke takes over, since it seems that no one else would speak the obvious. Bellamy blink several times and return to look the other guy in the motel, now he feels more confident to leave her sister by herself and go take care of Dax. The steel guy merely snorts before attack Bellamy with a jab, it did not work though. The curly haired boy dodges efficiently and Clarke uses this brief moment to push the big guy hard with her shoulder on the wall. The blonde thought things could not get worse as she watches him destroy the wall with the size of his strength and her own strength, but Clarke was dead wrong when police car's sirens startled her super hearing.

There're so many other sounds in her ear that Clarke almost lost, she was already used to it. When she gets nervous on certain occasions, her powers seem to mimic her nervousness, usually it's only her sharp's vision and her super hearing. At such times she needed to stop for a moment to focus on what she wants to hear and what she wants to see.

"We have to get out of here _right now_ , the cops are coming." Bellamy casts a suspect to look at her, and Clarke rolls her eyes pointing toward her ear, "Super hearing."

Bellamy is still with some distrust, that why Octavia takes the lead to not give any reason for the blonde girl go away and leave them there. "She's right, Bell. Come on, let's get the hell out of this forsaken place."

"But we can't let Dax –" The boy pauses what was about to say, looking to where Dax had fallen, but Dax is no longer there. "Well, it seems that he's faster than I had anticipated."

"Or you don't pay enough attention, I mean, that one there was standing, and waiting for God knows what, across the hall and you didn't see." Raven jokes looking at Clarke with a smirk, the blonde widened her eyes as she finds out that someone knew that she has there the whole time.

"Okay." Bellamy nods for Clarke go ahead, the blonde just roll her eyes at him lowering her head so the brunette laughing behind her don’t see her flushed cheeks. She's already regretting of helping the brunette.

The four are about to leave the motel through the back door – thanks to Clarke's vision – when a female voice make them freeze. "Hands up!"

Clarke's face crinkles with the fact that she hadn't heard anyone arrive, she was so intent on listening to _any_ unforeseen event. Well, Clarke will not lie, sometimes she ends up going unnoticed about some sounds when she’s really nervous. Like right now and it's not a good time for her powers fail on her.

"I said hands _up_!" The woman says again with a commanding tone, reaching the four of them.

Bellamy has a combination of wanting to run away as fast as possible or attack the cop, Clarke just felt utterly lost, because it’s one thing to attack the _bad guy_ , another thing is to attack a policewoman who is just doing her job, and she brief considered running, but will the cop shoot her? It will be one more person finding out about who she is, and she can't – _won't_ – take that risk. Besides, she only need to speak the truth, or at least half of the truth. With this thought, Clarke raises her hands, feeling the other three teen's gaze on her. Octavia and Raven are the next to raise their hands, while Clarke turns to look at the cop.

And it is entirely comical how the young Kryptonian's eyes widen when she comes face to face with the brunette from the park. The _beautiful_ woman from the park, which is apparently the police officer and this whole shit is way too _much_ coincidence. " _Oh shit_." She whispers, finding herself staring at the forest green eyes.

 

* * *

 

It's been hours, probably the whole afternoon, but Clarke are not certain. She kinda lost track of the time during the first time that her belly began to annoy her, and it's not really her fault. She has not eaten for a good amount of time and honestly, now she is regretting for not having run when the detective – or as she calls: gorgeous from the park. Who's she trying to fool? Really, anything with a with a nice adjective she has named the brunette. Her real name is Lexa Woods, but Clarke will continue to call her that in her mind – came in at the motel. In fact, in the meantime she had time to repent for things that have not _even_ happened!

Again, _not_ her fault.

She is sitting in this uncomfortable plastic's chair for a long time and her mind goes to strange places all at once. She does not like to be stuck in one place for so long and without knowing what will be her next move, not to mention that she has no idea where the others teens are, but she should have expected that they would split them up. Obviously a move from tv show, and they are wasting their time if they think Clarke will fall into this trap.

Clarke stiffens in the chair listening to Lexa's voice outside, and she can recognize Lexa's partner voice too, Anya Forrest. She could very well see where they had gone with her vision, but she _may_ have fallen asleep at some point. Again it was _not_ her fault, this chair is more comfortable than a park bench and the air conditioner didn't help her to stay awake.

"I'm not against you on this, Lexa. The truth is that there's something very wrong here, especially now with this asshole wanting to take these brats from here, _but_ we have no real reason to keep them here."

"I know, I know." There is a pause and Clarke narrow her eyes to see the two officers outside the room where she is detained. The young Kryptonian can clearly see how much Lexa's confused with the current situation; she would be too in her place. Clarke doesn't know how far they know what happened the other day, she assumes that they have no idea. "But people have disappeared, An. Out of nowhere there this guy convincing Gustus that this is not our problem and his _organization_ will resolve. What the hell does that even means?"

Anya shrugs and sighs looking at the door's room. "No idea, Lex. But I've never been a fan of this Cage guy. Seriously, his smile is so creepy, like –"

"An, focus." Lexa points to the room. "She's the last one, after that we have to release them. We _need_ to get something substantial from her."

Clarke rolls her eyes, _as_ _if_ they could do that, they have another thing coming.

"The blonde one, right? Leave her to me." The tall blonde smile again at the brunette before opening the door, Lexa seems hesitant but slowly nods.

Anya enters the room with some folders in her hand and tosses them on the dull small table, and looks at Clarke with what seems like a death's glare. And Clarke lean on the chair as if she not cares about anything, the truth is that this tall blonde scares her a _little_ bit. But she's a goddamn _Kryptonian_ , she will not be afraid of this human.

"I'll tell you the same thing I said to your delinquent friends, I don't mind stick around here for a while." Anya tell her raising an eyebrow waiting for Clarke's answer.

"Well," Griffin makes a brief gesture with her hands and continues, "As you can see I'm not in a rush too." And the blonde tries to play it cool, she _really_ did. But her belly immediately betrays her at the end of the sentence, leaving Clarke with red cheeks and Anya with an amused smile.

"It doesn't seem like your body wants to cooperate with you." Clarke doesn't answer just rolls her eyes, looking carefully when Anya begins to pull out something from her uniform. Slowly the tall blonde puts a chocolate bar on the table, her expression never changing from sarcastic.

"You got to be kidding me." Clarke says looking at Anya with her eyes wide, she's one step to catch the hershey's chocolate bar. "Can you people do this?"

"No idea what you're trying to imply."

"B – But... You just put..." Clarke blink and look at the chocolate bar then to Anya. Understanding coming to her, Anya seriously wanted to trade information for a chocolate bar? "Oh, _right_. Do you think this shit will work on me? You'll need a _whole_ vending machine to get something from me."

A small grin appears on Anya's face, and if you don't know her a little bit, you will not know that it's just when the blonde's entertaining with something. Clarke just doesn't understand how the tall blonde can switch her expression so quickly and easily.

"Sorry. I already have the same deal with your other friend."

Clarke shouldn't feel so outraged by what has been said, she would definitely do the same agreement just seconds ago. However, she is. She is alarmed and so _damn_ angry. Because this could mean very well that these cops know about her real identity, but then again this evil blonde doesn't seem to be afraid of her.

Clarke sighs and stares toward Lexa behind the glass wall and the brunette is looking straight at her. She shouldn't be staring at the officer as memorized, she doesn't even supposed to be staring at her. And Clarke does not know what is, but she just _cannot_ keep looking at these green eyes. It's like Lexa wants to see her from the inside out and Clarke never felt this kind of feeling before, and she is a little afraid of what Lexa will find out if she keeps searching.

Clarke shakes her head and looks at the other woman in the room, "Look, I was just in the wrong –" Before she could finish her memorized sentence – after hours trying to think what she would speak to them– the interrogation room's door was opened quietly by a middle-aged man. The man has short black hair, black beard and he's probably higher than two Clarke's standing up. He nods quickly to Anya and reluctantly the blonde leaves the interrogation room with him, not before sending a stern look at Clarke. And Clarke's alone _again_ , well, not completely alone. It has a brunette staring at her in the other room and the chocolate bar before her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Lexa barely appears in this chapter, but in the next one we'll see how she will fit in all this.  
> So... until the next chapter and I really hope you don't stop reading :D


	3. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke has a huge surprise. Lexa has no chill. And Aden may or may not still be a little kid.

"What the heck are you trying to do Anya? Because if you're plan a way of being fired, you are clearly managing!" The shouting outside makes Clarke lose her focus on her hunger momentarily and she can see Lexa with a sideways glance. The brunette seems to be stunned by the scream too, before leaving the room and join the two others out there.

"Uncle Gus –" Lexa starts calmly approaching the other two and rolls her eyes when man looks at her with a scolding expression. "Captain Forrest, we are finishing with the interrogations."

"Yeah. Then, they can go to their merry ways."

"Anya, don't test my patience." Gustus answers pointing at Anya's face, "Senator Kane is in the waiting room for over an hour and you know how that man gets when he has nothing better to do. I can even see the headline of tomorrow: Honored policewoman Indra Forrest attacks Senator Kane, because of his incessant chitchat."

Outside, Lexa and Anya cackle with what was said and Gustus rolls his eyes unable to hide the smile wanting to appear on his face. Inside the room is another matter, Clarke stopped paying attention when she heard Abby's husband's name. She closes her hands into fists, if she uses this strength in a human it will be capable of end up breaking their bones. And for a moment, for a tiny _tiny_ moment, she imagines to be her father's former best friend this human.

"Clarke?" Lexa is standing at the door with a concern look. The young Kryptonian had not even noticed the officer entering the room, maybe she let herself overthink. "You are released."

The blonde nods lifting up from the chair feeling relieved to get out, but at the same time startled with whom she'll meet in the way out. The two leave the room in silence, down the hall Anya is bringing the rest of the teenagers and Clarke feels a little claustrophobic with whom she'll come across. The blonde spent a good time with her uncle Kane – she doesn't call him like this anymore, obviously –, she remembers playing hide and seek with the man, remember how to take care of the backyard plants with Kane's mother.

But he's a traitor, just like her mother.

Both him and her are the reasons why Clarke don't have an ordinary life – a freak, always a freak – and because of this the blonde will _never_ be able to forgive them.

Lexa might have noticed her hesitation because before they went to where the others teens were, she holds Clarke's arm and wonders, "Are you alright?"

Clarke stop for an instant. She _needs_ to get out, she doesn't know what will be Kane's reaction if he sees her. Will he even recognize her? Will he even recognize the person he completely destroyed? Why he's here to get her? Not only her, Clarke corrects herself.

She's so keen to say _no_ , because she's not _ok_. Hell, it looks like she's on automatic, as if her life was in the pit and she had no desire to get up again. Then, she lifts her eyes and faces beautiful green eyes. Lexa seems like a good person and especially a good detective, she cannot and will not put someone good in her complicated life. No, she can't put anyone else in danger.

"I'm fine." Clarke answer shortly, increasing her pace towards to the police station’s entrance, leaving Lexa behind to increase her own pace. Clarke has a huge surprise at the entrance, she sees Octavia hugging Kane with fondness and for the first time Bellamy _smiling_ at the older man. Who doesn't look very happy is Raven, she's a little far from the trio and seems to want to get out of there unnoticed. Clarke can _fully_ understand that.

"Cla – Clarke?" The sound of her name appears unfamiliar to Kane's own ears, and Clarke swallows hard returning her gaze to the older man. He looks very well maintained and for a brief moment Clarke thinks about how her mother must be. She has aged well? She keeps going to her weekly salons to maintain her appearance?

Clarke really thought she could do this. Get out, say _thank you_ , walk away. It seems easier in her head, but now that she's staring at this damned man all she has planned is simply stupid. The blonde needs to get out before making any nonsense without turn back. That's exactly what Clarke did, she doesn't answer anything and just walk to the exit with purposeful steps – without giving any glance to the others teens.

Kane after quitting out of his daydreams, blinking a few times he runs after the blonde girl.

"Clarke, wait!" He has the dumbest idea of stopping the girl holding her wrist, Clarke locks her jaw and pulls her hand back hard. Kane opens his mouth to say something, but Clarke beats before him.

"I don't know why you helped me," She snarls in a low voice, not wanting to draw more attention than she already did. "But if you don't want a broken arm, you better stay the hell away from me." Clarke thinks if she should say something about her dad and how Kane will regret if he has something to do with that, but the man seems so confusing for her to be there without Jake. So, she decided to just go away.

Across the entrance, Lexa's frowning as she watches the whole interaction, she _knows_ something's wrong and definitely may even feel. The detective has seen Senator Kane with the other three teenagers previously, but she never saw him with that girl. Maybe she's thinking too hard, but there is something in this blonde girl that Lexa just cannot take her from her mind.

"Damn blondie, she took my last fucking Hershey's." Anya complains on her side and Lexa jumps a little startled.

That's another thing that worries her. The first time she saw Clarke, the blonde was sleeping on a bench and now she appears in an abandoned hotel, where a family has been kidnapped. And now there's Marcus Kane. There's something wrong with that crap story that Kane told Gustus and she'll find out.

"I need you to cover me till the end of the shift, An." Lexa states already going to get her jacket in her cubicle.

"What? Oh. No, no, no," Anya says scowling. "I will not cover your sweet ass for you go surprise Costia."

Costia's Lexa's girlfriend and soon to be wife, apparently – if she accepts her girlfriend’s marriage proposal. Lexa isn't really thinking that much about the little jewel box with a wedding ring inside, that she found in Costia’s closet last month.

The two met when they were in high school, they are essentially high school sweethearts. After graduation, unfortunately, they had lost touch, because Costia wanted to study overseas and Lexa couldn't think of her life elsewhere beyond Polis. After years Costia had returned to Polis because she had got a work's contract in Azgeda Media and the two woman even tried to be friends for a few months. Lexa was still very much in love with the dark haired woman, so much that she couldn't make any other relationship work in the meantime. Then, they decided to stop ignoring the elephant in the room and it's been a year since this. It's a year of reconciliation, Lexa don't know exactly if she's that ready to get married.

Because the detective needs to think of Aden as well, not only of her happiness. Besides the fact that Costia travels a lot for her work, so how this would work? Lexa doesn't know.

Lexa rolls her eyes to Anya, putting her jacket quickly. "It just happened _once_ and I'm leaving for the sake of our case."

"Mm..." Anya bites her bottom lip pausing to think about what her partner said, "You're going after the blonde, isn't it?" Lexa rubs her temple seeing Anya's look turn from clutter to displeasure.

"I know this sounds crazy, but there's something wrong with that girl and she was so _close_ to admit something back there."

Anya takes a deep breath before calmly replies, "Yeah... I noticed that too. Just be careful, okay?" And Lexa nods earnestly, this was something that the two often did.

They may not be sisters by blood but Lexa considers Anya as her elder sister since childhood. They have gone through so much together and that was more or less of a habit to speak this kind of thing when they are saying goodbye to each other. Lexa who started with all of this, actually. Anya was following her father's footsteps, Gustus Forrest, to become a cop at the time and Lexa, as always too dramatic, started saying this kind of thing in the first month of Anya working.

When Lexa decided to join the police law enforcement – definitely not by her parent's support – Anya began to acquire the same habit too, even if it were inconspicuous.

Lexa's already at the exit when she catches a glimpse of Gustus and her cousin, Lincoln Woods, talking quietly with Kane and the other teens. Something is _definitely_ going on here.

Lexa goes straight to her car, opening quickly to not lose too much time. She knows that Clarke's still probably around, but Lexa don't want to miss even a second. With all this meta-humans crap in the city, she always walks careful to where she's going, not that she's afraid of them. Detective Woods already had to cope with a lot these meta-humans in the past eight months and each time gets more odd than the first one. Sometimes, she feels like there is a _villain_ every week, now it just need the whole super heroes thing to became an entire new level of freak show.

Now they have this other case and how Lexa's, she always gets very wrapped with her cases. This is no different, quite the opposite. The kidnappings always occur outside the city and so far there is no witnesses. The first one was a group of teenagers who had decided to travel on their holidays, according to one of the teenager's mother. That was two weeks ago and when they had finally found the group’s car, there was nothing there but a wrecked vehicle.

Then there as the disappearance in the same hotel that she found Clarke and her friends, it has a married couple and a child who was missing and according to the family’s friend they were in the hotel. A few hours ago Anya had received a call about two men's disappearance and the curious thing is that it was near the hotel. It was at the gas station near and everything seems to get even more complex.

It became a _lot_ more when Lexa and Anya heard a huge crash at the hotel when they were leaving the gas station.

Much to her delight, the blonde is in the corner of the Police Department's car park. Eating a chocolate bar and looking like a kicked puppy and Lexa can't take her eyes off the blonde. This probably has to do with the fact that she had the distinct impression that she had seen Clarke before, but she just can't reach that part of her memory.

"Hey." She draws Clarke's attention, while lowering her car's window. The blonde seems unsure how to answer Lexa, then the brunette tries to break the ice between the two, "So, I know a place that has a great hot dog. Probably the best in the whole Polis..." Lexa cuts herself without knowing how to convince the blonde and Clarke looks totally muddled and _so_ lonely, that makes Lexa want to hug her and comfort her. And this's so not Lexa. The brunette clears her throat, "I need to get my nephew from school and I don't know why but he doesn't stop talking about this camper girl. And now that I'm in her presence, I was wondering if she would like to join me... Aden will probably be very happy if you join us."

Clarke's mouth twists into a shy smile and Lexa sighs relieved, she has no idea why she was nervous about something so silly.

"You had me in the _hot dog_."

 

* * *

 

Clarke doesn't know what got into her to accept go for dinner with Lexa and Aden. She says to herself that it was probably the impact of having a decent meal.

That's why she's here.

Here been in Lexa's car seat, listening to the car's owner and a little jumpy Aden in the back seat. They had just get the little boy in elementary school and when Aden saw her next to Lexa, he had meaningfully increased his footsteps and tried not to show how much he had been surprised and happy to see her there. Lexa and Clarke had not said how they had met the second time around, just that they bumped in each other in the Police Department and Aden appears to accept really well.

"You do Muay Thai?" Clarke asks curious, after Lexa have asked how was the class to the blond boy. The blonde looks to the back and sees Aden with a bashful smile and carry on when she sees the boy begin to get nervous, "Awesome, kid! I have my fair share of martial arts under my belt too."

After that Clarke regrets telling that, because now Lexa's kind of looking at her with a sideways look and Clarke can feel her gaze in miles away. For real, someone has to tell Lexa how her gaze can affect _anyone_. And, Clarke has to admit this is one of those moments where she's grateful for her Kryptonian's genes, because well, she always had an athletic body. But part of that was because of the training that her dad always made her join.

"Really?" Aden says and a smile makes his whole face turn brighter, "I started practicing when I was four years old."

"No, you didn’t..." Lexa teasing remark with a grin, giving as much attention to the conversation as in the traffic. "You _toyed_ with the punch mitts at that time. He didn't let anyone touch it for like weeks and proclaimed himself the King of the Mitts." The brunette glares at Clarke as if they were accomplices and Clarke can't hold her laugh.

Aden snorts and crosses his arms. Clarke's mouth twists upward seeing how the little boy looks like a spoiled child this way.

"You don’t live here, right?"

Clarke nods talking softly to Lexa, "Yeah. What made you notice that?"

Lexa shrug. "I don't know. I think what gave away was that you had slept on a bench, probably."

Clarke chuckle amiable, "I travel a _lot_."

Lexa turns to Clarke when she has to stop at a red light and comments on this, "You don't seem like the sort of person who lives traveling."

"Well, you don't seem like the kind of person who would be a detective," Clarke throws right back with a cheeky smile. "But again you're and a good one if you ask me."

Lexa let out a giggle and turns her attention to the traffic, feeling her cheeks burn with the praise. Immediately reproaching herself to be feeling like this, so many people have told how she was a great at her job, so why she behaved this way due to Clarke's compliment something that she already knows?

Lexa's not blind either, she knows that her glances at Clarke can be seen as something inappropriate, and really the brunette can't deny that the young woman's completely beautiful. And she can be _slightly_ attracted to Clarke, but it doesn't change the fact that she's in love with Costia.

The trio arrives the hot dog's stand pretty fast and they didn't wait long to be served. As Lexa had said, the hot dog there was very good indeed, but Clarke thinks her hunger had great blame on it too. They stayed for a while there chatting and just getting to know each other. Actually, who spoke about other subjects more had been Aden, when he discovers that Clarke practiced Muay Thai too, the little boy couldn't stop asking questions about when Clarke had started and stuffs like that. Lexa was something completely different, at the same time she wanted to know the young blonde, she knew she couldn't be distracted. Clarke was the only link to this whole case, who don't seem to agree with Kane and she needs to use it. That why Lexa used every opportunity to learn about the blonde's past, not directly of course the brunette doesn't want Clarke becoming suspicious.

After they are satiated, Clarke was ready to return to her small bench, she wanted to be able to get more time with Lexa and Aden, but it was getting late. Maybe tomorrow the young Kryptonian could pass by the Police Department with the lie that she left something over there and use this opportunity to talk to Lexa.

Obviously, this will be after she take a look out on her dad's phone.

As it had been Lexa who paid for all the hot dogs, Clarke felt the need to do something, even if it was something so damn easy like throwing all the plastics and soda's plastic cup in the trash. The blonde looks at where has some people crowded as she starts to return, Polis wasn't like this when Clarke had visited as a child. For a moment she wonders how something can change so fast, she wonders if her mom is among this crowd too. Abby wasn't the kind of person who liked to be among so many people, but Clarke knows that Kane just love this kind of life. Maybe he changed what her mom like or dislike.

Seeing Marcus has been like a punch in the stomach, because her mom must be here. So close to her but so far away at same time.

"Why don't you come to Lexa's apartment with us?" Aden’s cheery voice makes Clarke get out of her reverie. She blinks a few times looking hopeless at Lexa, waiting for the woman say about how they cannot invite Clarke to their home this way. However, she doesn't say anything.

Lexa explains putting her arm around Aden's shoulder. "We'll have dessert there. If you wish to accompany us, that would be nice." Clarke nods smiling at the little family, because seriously the two look so much like mother and son.

 

* * *

 

"So... you _always_ traveling?" Aden asks curiously with his arms on his back just like the first time, after returning from having to wash his hands. Another thing the blonde observed was that the two resemble so much that at first she thought Lexa was Aden's mother. For a moment Clarke was so curious that she wanted to use her x-ray vision to see if Lexa's apartment had a room for Aden, but she capped that desire almost immediately. It was not right to do this with the family that accepted her when she had nowhere to go.

"Yeah," Clarke says and smiles nervously, she didn't know how much she could speak, because liking it or not Lexa's still a detective. She adds under her breath, "It's not so cool as it sounds."

“Why?” Aden asks confused and continues to speak before Clarke could try to explain somehow, "I _think_ I understand you. Because there are some cities not as interesting as others, but I guess it goes from one person to another. I'm particularly fond of Paris."

"Cool, I always wanted to go there." Clarke grins and it's not that far away. Perhaps, she and her dad can travel there when all of this is over. This time she'll tell him that flying is faster and way more fun and _maybe_ she can convince him this time around.

"What do you do?" Lexa's voice makes Clarke open her eyes again and her smile disappear, she doesn't know exactly what to answer because it means that she'll have to talk about her dad. "I mean, you're eighteen, right? How can you support yourself and go anywhere you want without any effort? And where you were a year ago? You happened to be emancipated?"

When Lexa began to ask one question after another, Clarke became completely awkwardly and she can even feel the place becoming tense after the detective finishes.

“Uh...” Clarke clears her throat putting the spoon back on the plate, her hunger forgotten. "Well, I'm almost nineteen. I don't do anything, really. It's all my dad." Lexa seem surprised that she said that, Clarke is surprised at herself too. Really, the only thing the blonde wants to do now is rush out through that door with super speed and everything. But she remains still in the chair because Lexa deserves at least half the truth, right?

Because seriously, she would probably be crying if Lexa had not shown up in the parking lot.

"Oh," Lexa released and seems to have started figure out everything all over again, Clarke has to admit that Lexa's just so damn cute when she's trying to focus on something. "Why your father didn't go get you in the Police Department? Why were you sleeping on a bench in the first place?" Lexa inquiry indignantly and looks angrier than curious, alas Clarke don't stop to detect Lexa's behavior.

The young Kryptonian's only gathering the pieces of the puzzle together and shakes her head bitterly. "Y – you... holy sh –" She put her hand over her mouth to not finish the sentence looking at Aden, the boy seems a little lost. "You invited me to your house to feel at ease... th – this is a freaking interrogation. No wonder you just wanted to know about me all along."

Clarke is already out of the chair when Lexa attempts to grab her wrist. And _yeah_ , the young girl understands from where comes all these questions. Because Lexa did let her into her house. A total stranger, that what she is and furthermore she's also an _alien_. Who would want an alien in their house, right?

But Clarke never felt so at _home_ in the last hours and know that this was only a way to find out how she is connected to all the bullshit that's happening makes Clarke feel so, _so_ used.

"Look, thanks for the dinner and dessert, it was very kind of you, seriously. But I can’t help you with your case." Clarke states frankly and turns to face Aden smiling at him, "It was good to see you again, Aden." 

The young blonde turns to leave the apartment and Lexa doesn't really know what to say, because Clarke is in some way correct. Perhaps she should have been a little more discreet, but she kind of got lost in her own memories when Clarke spoke about her father and the words fled from her mouth unintentionally. But Lexa will not lie, she didn't invited Clarke only because of her work and she was definitely enjoying the blonde's company.

Lexa runs to the front door trying to reach Clarke, she's about to call the blonde when she furrows her brow looking at the empty hallway. Clarke couldn't have picked up the elevator as it's still on the rooftop and she would be still in the hallway if she were to take the stairs. _Okay, that's weird_ , she thinks and shakes her head. _Nah, she must have run to the stairs_.

When Lexa turn back to the apartment after locking the front door, she sees Aden standing in the edge of the table and he looks a bit uncomfortable.

"D – Did... I – I... uh," Aden gulps and asks quietly, "I did something for her to leave like that?"

Lexa can see the tears in Aden's blue eyes and approaches the little boy. She should have known that this would be Aden's reaction by the unexpected exit. The little blond has always been a very emotional child and it was very difficult for him to open up to someone so quickly.

"Of course not, Aden." She bends down to stay in the boy's height. "That was my fault, not yours. You didn't do anything wrong, okay?"

Aden's mouth trembles and mumbles unconvinced, "But I asked a lot of stuff to her. Ma – Maybe... she was angry about that?"

"No, of course not." Lexa break off and sighs. "It’s me who shouldn’t have mixed work with private life." Aden nods slowly, looking a little bit lost still and Lexa tries to comfort him giving a squeeze on his shoulder. "How about you go getting ready for story time while I'm cleaning the dishes, uh?"

Aden blushes and looks down mumbling quickly, "I'm too old for story time."

Lexa smile gently and says, "Yeah? Well, I guess I'll have to read ' _The Raccoon Who Is Afraid Of The Dark'_  alone, then."

Aden turns to run to the bathroom shouting from the top of his lugs, "Today I can be little!"

Lexa think of scolding her little nephew for running inside the apartment, but think better of it. It had been a long time since she didn't see Aden so happy as today, the last time was when her sister had been here. Echo, her older sister, had Aden at her sixteen and he was under their parent's care for a long time. Because her sister had decided to study abroad. Of course at that time the little boy knew who was his mother and he felt too much when Echo was back in Polis in the holidays. Since childhood Aden did _everything_ to get her attention, even tried to be the perfect child.

Lexa knew all this because in one evening he had told her that he wanted to be the perfect child to his mother move back in Polis and she feels her fury bubble up. Because Aden deserved a better mother than her sister, and that day on she made one of her missions to try and make her little nephew as happy as possible.

Lexa look outside through the living room window and her face contorts in heaviness. It's already dark outside and even if the detective knows that where she lives is safe, doesn't make her worry for Clarke decrease. Her will is to go out and search for the young woman, but she doesn't know where to start and she can't leave the little boy in the other room in the apartment alone.

The brunette sighed and decided to start cleaning the dishes and the entire time cleaning, her mind keeps coming back to Clarke.

 

* * *

 

Clarke isn't having a good night, at least the park that she had slept previously was close by. She had no desire to fly. The blonde didn't look at her father's phone, too much focused on what she'll do now with her life. She can't go back to where her father's car has left, Clarke could very well run into Lexa and Anya there. So, _now_ what she'll do?

Find a _job_ and wait for her dad come back in some mysterious way? Or trust in the cops with the only evidence that her dad and her were there to begin with?

Clarke just doesn't know.

One thing she knows at least is that it's getting late and she definitely should sleep if she wants to get up early tomorrow. And she has this stupid nagging thought in her head bouncing around like a fucking ball that she shouldn't stay in Polis. Sometimes, Clarke doesn't understand her own impulse to run away, maybe because in her entire life, that's what the young woman did. Or, perhaps to have a glimpse of _freedom_. Because Clarke knows that freedom is associated with living and really, living's something that Clarke doesn't have the delighted to have.

But she didn't expect to have to spend her life without her dad, Clarke always had Jake to protect her. The Kryptonian still holds on the hope that he will return, even if it's declining with the time passing through. The day her dad was taken away from her, was only a reminder that Clarke _can't_ save him. Because she always trained, but just for fun. She always trained her powers, but again only for fun and for the sake of her sanity. Clarke was so confident when she woke, but now not so much as before.

Because if Clarke can't even save herself, how can she save her dad?

Clarke tenses at the sound of footsteps and she looks to her right with apprehension, there is Lexa slowly walking toward the bench. The brunette is wearing black skinny jeans with a white shirt and a petite olive trench coat with skirted hem and lace-up corset, black boots. And Clarke has to blinks a couple of times, not understanding why Lexa's starting to sit down by her side.

"My name's not Lexa, well at least it wasn't until I was adopted by the Woods. My real name is Alexandria, my adoptive parents thought it would be easier to remember if it was shorter." Lexa breaks off for a moment swallowing the fact that she just told Clarke about something she'd _never_  told anyone that was not close to her. The blonde doesn't know what to say, she has no idea _why_ Lexa's telling her this to begin with. "I don't like black coffee, donuts and cats. In high school, I had this dream of becoming a children's books writer, in fact I have series of booklets made in my room. And my friends call me _The Commander_ when we play paintball."

Clarke's more than confused when Lexa finishes, and a little amused by the whole commander thing. She decides to go with, "Should I know what you're trying to say?"

Lexa laughs and says softly, "I'm sorry for having done so many personal questions, only after it rang on me that I didn't said anything about me. I shouldn't have pressured you, and it was completely out line on my part."

"I – You..." Clarke stops and finally looks up at Lexa, and there's just _so_ much sincerity in the forest green eyes that makes Clarke look down again. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. I mean, you let me get into your home, so..."

"That's not an excuse to push you." Lexa says quickly. "And I know it's hard to believe that someone just wants to help. God, I know it myself. But I want, Clarke. And if you allow me, I will help you no matter the cost."

"I... don't really know what to say." Clarke says after a long silence, her voice's a bit rough. Because the young woman doesn't know what Lexa could do for her, but at the same time Clarke _wants_ to accept Lexa's help. After one moment, Clarke shakes her head, trying to erase the desire to accept. She can't put someone like Lexa, who has _so_ _much_ to _lose_ in this. Clarke can't be so selfish like this. "Lexa, I need you to understand that this isn't like asking your help with some silly thing. Li – Like helping to look for a job, or –"

"Like I said," Lexa cuts off Clarke's ramble. "I want to help you, Clarke. I know it's not some stupid thing, I mean, I'm detective I know exactly where I'm getting myself into."

"Do – Do you _really_... mean that?"

"I do." The detective replies without hesitation in every spoken word, trying to make Clarke see that she's being serious. Lexa _needs_ Clarke to know, that she doesn't need to go through whatever is happening by herself.

Clarke sighs exhausted and looks up, the night is far more beautiful than the night before. It been a while since she just looks at the sky, Clarke forgot how beautiful it's. Polis has this different sensation, like she could _finally_ stop. Just stop and come _home_ and Clarke knows that it will never be her true home if her father isn't here, but at the same time she feels herself getting new found hope. She _will_ find him and when that happens, she can say exactly that to him, that maybe this is exactly what they should do, that they should stop running away from everything and stay here. In the midst of crazy organizations, meta-humans that're just too damn brave and stupid at the same time, and yes, one hot's detective that has a golden heart.

"Okay," Clarke finds herself accepting. " _Okay_..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like I said in the last chapter, in this one we would see how Lexa would fit. I hope you enjoyed and I would love to know what you think or if you would like something more :)  
> Anyway, until next time!


	4. The fire's out but still it burns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's still sad, obviously. Things seem to start fall into place, when we have other characters wanting to find out the same thing that our two favorite ladies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys!  
> So, I'm back and I'm really sorry for the delay.  
> I would like to thank you again for the kudos and bookmarks, I didn't thought that you guys would like my story, rs.

Clarke has lived in several places, from small flats to houses made for large families. She never really cares whether she would live in a large place or not, as long as she has her own bedroom Clarke was okay. The blonde also was never the kind of person who tidies the bedroom every single day, or... _any_ other day, really. Clarke had her dad for this kind of stuff. One may say that she could very well use her powers to do it, but try that with a father like Jake. It was as if he had a sensor of when and where the young woman used her powers, then she had to spend hours listening to Jake's lectures about how she has to be more careful and how Clarke is putting them at risk exposing her powers like this.

It was quite annoying.

Clarke never thought she would miss it, but right now sitting on the single bed of Lexa's apartment, Clarke is not so sure anymore. On the previously day, Lexa had told Clarke that she had a bedroom left in her apartment, the blonde didn't know whether to be apprehensive or not. But she had accepted Lexa's help and the brunette seemed so sincere. That why Clarke had accepted, besides she had nowhere to go and a bed sees just right.

It should be about six in the morning still, the apartment is quiet and the bedroom is deeper into darkness. The pajama clothes borrowed from Lexa are folded on the small dresser, the blanket she used a while ago is straightened out on the bed and her dad's phone is tossed somewhere on the room.

Clarke's with her chin resting on her knees on the bed, her arms around her them and her tears mingling into her pants fabric. Clarke doesn't know how many minutes she's crying quietly and frankly it's not like she cared.

Clarke had decided that today she would tell the whole story of what happened that day to Lexa – taking away the fact that she and her dad are aliens. Therefore, she woke up early today, to check out her father's phone and making sure there was nothing that could inform about their origin.

Clarke had a huge surprise when saw that her father and Abby exchange emails. Many of them are pictures of her, some even important moments of her life. And Clarke couldn't believe that her dad lied to her up to this point. Clarke simply _didn't_ want believe.

Clarke saw a number of messages and calls dated from a few hours ago, every single one from Abby Griffin and thought of answer them, but what would Clarke say? _'Hey, mom. Everything is fine, dad was caught by some wacky dudes. But, hey, by all means, I just found out that he still was in touch with you! So nice to know that you still care about our nearly-extinct-alien-life.'_

Clarke frown looking up at the door, the faint sound of music passing through it reaching her eardrums and Clarke have heard this song before. Maybe when she was traveling with her dad. She takes a deep breath wiping her face on a dry sleeve, getting up then.

Lexa has done so much for her already, Clarke _needs_ to be honest with her.

Clarke slowly collects herself searching for her father's phone around the room, it doesn't take long to find it. She looks around the room and nods to herself, the room seems flawlessly as the day before. Clarke really didn't want to give any reason for Lexa to kick her out, even if Clarke don't think that Lexa would do something like that. But Clarke can already say that Lexa is the kind of person who likes to have everything in its place and it's not like the blonde judge her for liking her apartment clean up, quite the opposite. And it's just that Clarke doesn't want to do anything wrong and make Lexa give up on her.

The young Kryptonian leaves the room carefully to avoid wake up the little Aden asleep in the adjoining room, even though she thinks the boy get up early. Last night, when Clarke and Lexa came back to the apartment Aden was already asleep. According to Lexa, she had asked her neighbor to keep an eye on him for a little while and Clarke was embarrassed that Lexa had to leave the little blond because of her. But the brunette said it was no big deal, that this has happened a few times already and Aden enjoys staying with the neighbor.

It looks like she's being so quiet that Lexa don't notice her too, or perhaps the brunette is just not paying enough attention. Clarke feels like is more of the latter. The detective's cooking while shaking her head with the beat of the music and Clarke has to control herself to not lower her eyes to Lexa's body, because the brunette is only wearing short and tank top. Clarke clears her throat to be noticed in the kitchen, and as well not being caught staring at Lexa like a teenage boy.

"Good morning," Clarke throws a smile at Lexa and for a tiny moment Lexa seems to froze, but a second later she turns around with a small smile.

"Good morning, Clarke. Did you sleep well?" Lexa replies.

Clarke sits in one of the kitchen counter's seats, before answering Lexa's question, "Yes, I did. You?"

"Well," Lexa turns off the stove and using a fish slice, she begins to transfer the pancakes from the pan to the plates. And when the brunette glares at Clarke with a tired smile, the blonde knows that was not the only one who had trouble sleeping. "I had to finish some paperwork, but beyond that it was a good night."

Clarke crinkles her brow, thinking that maybe the reason for Lexa be this tired is probably her fault since the detective had gone after her twice yesterday. "Thanks for the clothes, by the way."

"It was nothing, Clarke." Lexa looks at the blonde out of the corner of her eye and tilts her head to the side pensively. "Mmm... they seem a little bit tight, yes?"

"It's ok." Clarke merely shrug and it really was, she didn't want to make Lexa go through more trouble because of her. And yes, the grey sweater was slightly tight in her shoulder, but not a nuisance.

"What do you think of when I get back from work we go buy some clothes for you?"

"Oh, no, no, Lexa." Clarke shakes her head frantically. "I can't ask you to buy clothes for me. Seriously, I'm fine like this."

"You don't look fine; you seem quite uncomfortable." A voice makes Clarke jump slightly startled, walking like a little zombie is Aden while yawns and rubs his tired eyes. Clarke accepts the pancakes with blueberries from Lexa and says thanks to her, before look at the little boy again.

"Geez, Aden." Clarke says feigning be scared. "Great way to kill someone."

"It will probably be easier for you die from asphyxia than something else." Lexa says instead of the little boy, who is putting a cup of milk for himself.

Clarke rolls her eyes, but the sides of her mouth twitch when she locks eyes with Lexa and the blonde quietly mumbles, "Shut up."

Lexa says earnestly, "I'm serious, Clarke, if you change your mind you can say to me. Money is not an issue, so do not hesitate."

"Ok." Clarke takes a deep breath, because she _has_ to get a job now. The Kryptonian can't take advantage of Lexa's kindness and she intends to pay it all back, as soon as possible.

 

* * *

 

"You'll be okay, right?" Lexa asks for the second time and Clarke nods with a grin. They are in front of Polis police department and had just dropped off Aden at Lexa's grandmother. The two women had decided that they would meet at twelve o'clock to lunch with Aden and in the meantime Clarke would kill some time walking around the city. Lexa turns to get into the department with a wave to Clarke.

The detective's really wondering about all that Clarke knows, but she decided to discuss it at lunch with Clarke. Furthermore, Lexa would ask Anya to join them and she kind of needs to prepare herself for what her partner will say about everything that Lexa did. Like inviting a stranger to her home.

Yeah... Anya definitely will not let it go.

Lexa goes through the front desk and spots a familiar face looking a bit awkwardly near her desk, there was Monty Green, the young man often came to the police department. Her captain's a man who doesn't like to involve civilians in police matters – she is too for that matter –, but the Asiatic has shown on several occasions that he was necessary there. Especially meta-human's cases.

Lexa smiles at the young man and greets, "Monty, good to see you here."

He seems to breathe out and flashes a wide smile at the detective. Detective Woods was always the only one there that doesn't look at him like some stupid child. "Lexa, hi! I finished doing the analyzes you asked, as you had expected is a meta-human. A really strong meta-human."

"Hopefully, it's not some sour villain trying to destroy the city." Anya sarcastically remarks, rolling her eyes with her arms crossed over her chest, she's so used to these _things_ that it's no longer funny.

Monty looks around and out of nowhere seems a little unsure, "I heard that you guys dropped the kidnapping's case and –"

Anya lifts her hand into Monty's face cut him off, "Wait a second there, Geeky Boy. Who the heck told you that?"

Monty takes a step back and fidgets with the hem of his shirt. "Well, It – I heard and –"

Anya snort. "Oh. You _heard_ , huh?"

"Y – Yes... and I was, eer, thinking what would be the reason –"

"Please, Greenie." Anya rolls her eyes and Lexa sighs on her side. "Can you be more pathetic than already is? I mean, your buddy Young Kane know exactly why we are no longer in the case, of course you know the reason."

Monty gulps stammering his answer, "Uh... I knew that, it's just that –" Suddenly Lexa is pulling the genius boy away from her partner, the detective just let go of Monty when they are in a small hallway of the department. "Thanks." Monty sighs relieved straightening his clothes and hair like it was a habit.

“I'm very sorry, Monty.” Lexa says and tries to defend her partner's behave. "It's just that this subject is very sensitive to her. It's the first time we were forced to give up on a case and Anya may not have taken it in a... _good_ way."

"Sorry." He says sadly. "I just thought that maybe you two had not dropped anyway."

Lexa shakes her head in denial, "We had to let go of the case. We didn't have much of a choice, the Weather organization gather up all the evidence and it's not like we had a lot. In fact, Gustus has already talked to Anya about another case."

Monty is a good guy and has helped them in many situations with meta-humans, that said doesn't mean that Lexa don't have a little doubt whether or not trust him.

"I see," Monty's shoulders drop. "Kane asked me to let it be."

"You don't sound very happy about it." Lexa comments, because she knows how this is completely unfair.

He says bitterly. "No, I'm not. Kane says that this is something above us, but I don't believe it for a second. I mean, look at the past few months, you guys managed to stop the amount of 7 meta-humans."

"If it was not for you, we would be unable to arrest them, Monty."

"You might be right about that, but it was not me who would die if something went south." The Asian boy glances around and Lexa watches him closely. "You know when you guys were looking for a liaison between those kidnapped? Well, it can be just a speculation, but all of them were in Polis on the day that the S.K.Y Labs particle accelerator exploded."

Lexa raises an eyebrow, "How can it help?"

"Do the math," Monty shrugs, "Do you remember when the first meta-human showed up?"

Lexa's body stiffens and she inquiry uneasily, "Do you think Dra. Heda has something to do with the meta-humans?"

"No, not really. I was working in the S.K.Y lab at that time and all the research seemed so accurate, without any little hole."

"So you think that there is people kidnapping meta-humans?" Anya's voice makes the young man turn around quickly. "They would have to go through a lot of trouble, no?"

"I do not believe they knew about their powers and it just shows that whoever caught them, had a lot of information." Monty explains patiently.

The three are quiet for a while, each with their own interpretation. However, all three wondering what these meta-humans may be going through right now. Lexa closes her hands tightly thinking about the little son of the missing couple, who had also been taken.

"Uh, you guys will still drop the case?" Monty hesitate and doesn't wait for their answers. "Look, I – I know that I don't have a say about this whole thing, and could end up causing you two's dismissal. But if we don't do something, who will?"

This time, not even Anya had a good answer to the young man. Because Anya didn't believe that the others would put their lives in danger for meta-humans and if she was not in the case from the very beginning, she herself would have her own doubts.

Monty finishes with a slightly pleading tone, "If you guys change your mind, call me. Please."

The young man's turning his back marching towards the exit when Lexa says, "Don't go doing anything foolish, okay?"

Monty tilts his head with a smile, "I'm not going. I'm not very good with stupid plans."

Lexa watches quietly the young engineer getting out of the Police Department and then turn to face her partner. Anya is leaning against the wall, a scowl on her face and her head tilted downward thoughtfully.

Lexa clears her throat trying to get the tall blonde's attention. "No one will have our backs if we keep digging, you know that right?"

Anya looks up with a smirk replying straightforward. "Since when do we need backup? I have your back and you have mine. Always."

"Yeah... it has always been like that." Lexa smiles happily. "Do you remember that time when you got –"

"Ok, ok." Anya interrupts with dismissive wave of her hand. "Sappy moment is over." Lexa laughs shaking her head and walks a little faster to reach the blonde woman. Walking side by side the two go straight to the Captain's office and Lexa bites the corner of her mouth staring uneasily at the older man in the office.

"You know that he can't be aware of this, right?" Lexa claims in a low voice and adds when she sees Anya's eyes narrowing. "At least for now."

"I know," Anya closes her hands in fists. "I don't think we are the only ones who know more about this bloody case." Lexa is unable to ask about what Anya means about that, because Gustus is opening the door for them. And for now Lexa need to pay attention to another case.

 

* * *

 

Clarke had plenty of time and she could use this time for many things. Look for a job, explore the city, hell she could even stay in the little lake of her favorite public square feeding the ducks. However, she did none of these three options, _ok_ maybe she stayed for a few minutes in the little pond. Since the moment that Clarke saw her parent's messages she couldn't shake her intuition that Jake knew exactly where they were going. And that would be in Polis.

The young Kryptonian needs to make sure that Abby had nothing to do with what happened to her dad, because that's the only clue she has. It's the _only_ thing she found about her dad in that damned motel.

Clarke puts her head down promptly seeing a teenager girl getting inside Kane's former home. It had been more than hours that she is there, and the blonde had not seen anyone entering or leaving the house, until now. The only hint that they still live there was the amount of photos hanging in the living room and Clarke recognizes this girl as Abby and Kane's daughter. This makes Clarke stop for a while to think how long her mother waited until remarriage and makes her want to punch everything close to her.

Clarke is already preparing herself to leave, there was nothing meaningful over here. It was at this _very_ moment that Clarke saw a familiar brunette jumping over the fence of the house and walking like she had not just get into a private property. The blonde's mouth is slightly open watching the beautiful brunette break into the back door. Clarke should go, since the first time she saw this Raven girl, Clarke just _knew_ she was trouble. Unfortunately, part of her is a little more than quizzically and she really wants to know what Raven's looking for in Kane's house. Her snooper side won without even having to fight her rational side.

Clarke looks around nervously and hides her face with the hood of her navy jacket. Clarke can't deny she's a little nervous, she never broke into someone's house and the motel doesn't count because in that time she was completely desperate. Now it's different.

The young Kryptonian jumps the wooden fence effortlessly doing the same route as Raven, only a little more slowly and paying attention to everything. Clarke don't want to end up in the police department again. The door's unlocked and she enters without making much noise. The back door leads to the kitchen and it has everything Clarke could possibly imagine. Sticky notes hanging on the fridge, cereal box on the counter, small murals with drawings hanging on a wall. Clarke makes her way to the fridge seeing the smalls sticky notes from her mother and locks her jaw hard.

It was not for this that she was here.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Raven asks a little anxious walking into the kitchen with a folder under her arm. Clarke turning to face the brunette and curse herself for been carried away by some nonsense.

"Well, you, eer, I saw you." Clarke scowls what she said feels more like a question than a statement.

"Do you have some kind of disaster sensor?" Raven looks momentarily humorous but then her face falls. "Damn it, Monty. It was this sort of thing you should warn me in advance."

The brunette turns around at the same time that a man materializes at the kitchen door. Clarke don't even blink watching with her mouth half-open as Raven quickly pull out a gun from the leg holster and with experience of a professional shoots on his shoulder. Clarke watches spellbound as the bullet strikes the man's shoulder and a small amount of electricity go through his shoulder and he falls to the ground like a heavy bag of potatoes.

Raven doesn't spare a look to the man on the floor or even for the teenage girl screaming at the top of the stairs she just makes her way to the exit door, expecting the blonde to be following her. Clarke isn't. Clarke's stuck staring at the motionless body.

"You coming or what?" Raven asks glancing over her shoulder with a perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. "Relax. He's not dead."

Clarke gulps nodding haltingly and runs outside looking all around before asking what was on her mind, "What you did with that guy?"

Raven shrugs. "No biggie, it will only make him unable to use his powers for a while."

"His powers?" Clarke lets out a tiny _oh_ , staring right back at the door like she could see the man again and adds in awe, "Like teleport himself?"

Clarke follows the girl down the street and Raven sends a weird look at her.

"For someone who knows how to fully use your powers, you sure are a little bit lost about the whole mutant thing, huh?" Clarke's face squirms into confusion. Raven huffs. "Look, I don't have time for the whole chat about you being a mutant." Clarke stops her walk to whatever Raven is going and opens her mouth to correct the brunette, but the young woman isn't paying attention to her anymore. "Or meta-human. Whatever, Monty. Yes, she was the one who helped me at the motel. Oh, _please_. I could definitely get out of there with my hands tied and without my powers."

"Didn't looked like." Clarke mutters remembering the guy who almost smashed the brunette and Raven stares at her as if Clarke had just challenged her. The blonde raises her arms as a white flag's signal and then asks, "So you are a meta-human? Why you didn't use your power back there?"

"Because of this," Raven shakes her wrist with a bracelet on it, looking at it in disgust. "You?"

"What about me?"

"What the hell were you doing in the Kane's happy house?"

"Um," Clarke scratches her nape nervously. "Looking for answers I guess."

Raven opens the door of a red car and turns to Clarke again. "And for what questions?" Clarke looks down biting her lower lip, she doesn't know what to say. She actually entered her mother's house because of Raven? Or because she wanted to know how her mother is over the last 13 years?

"I like you, steel girl." Raven winks at the blonde after what she said and the young Kryptonian can feel her cheeks getting hot, it was very hard for her to socialize with people, now just guess to someone as gorgeous as Raven. The brunette seems to have picked up Clarke's hesitation as she takes something from her back pocket and grabs Clarke's hand to put the small card on. "Call me when you know the questions and maybe I know the answers for you." The brunette winks at Clarke one more time before leaps into the car.

Clarke blinks couple of times replaying the day's events while the car pulled out. She opens her hand to take a look at the card, in italic font is the name: _Sinclair Shop_ and in the back there's a phone number with the brunette's name. Clarke puts the small card safely in her pocket looking back, Raven had left the car a bit far from Abby's house but it doesn't change the fact that Clarke need to get away from there.

The neighborhood's emptiness and seems to be a good time for her to fly away, quite literally. The young woman runs down the street picking up boost and with a leap to give a little more, Clarke's flying. It was the only way that Clarke knew to start flying, actually she never managed to take off standing still on the ground and apparently it was quite funny to her dad. Flying was something very unusual for her because Jake always scolded when she attempted and Clarke had to admit it was not hard to see her flying off out there. Clarke treasure every little moment that she can fly, to feel the wind rustling against her face, playing with her long blond hair. It was like _nothing_ could hold her down, like the rules of the ground were no longer applied on her.

Clark flies at high speed to reach the diner where Lexa and she would meet, her nerves on the edge. She will not only have to deal with Lexa, but with Anya too and the blonde detective maybe don't accept half the truth. The Kryptonian stand still on the air when she's near the diner, looking for a place to come down without anyone seeing. It's not hard to find. Polis is a big city with lots of back alleys and even though these alleys are odd, Clarke can take care of herself if comes to that. The blonde lands on an alley a block away from the diner and straightens her clothes, doing the same with her messy hair.

“Clarke, in here.” The blonde hear as she enters the diner, she looks to her right and can see Anya and Lexa in one of the booths. Anya's particularly with a face not that nice.

Clarke smiles at both detectives and waves to Anya awkwardly. "Hey, Lexa. Anya."

"Detective Forrest for you, delinquent." Anya throws back immediately and Lexa hits Anya lightly in the stomach with her elbow. Anya keeps staring at the other blonde and Clarke smiled weakly as she sits on the other side of the booth.

"So..." Lexa starts and clears her throat, trying to get Anya's attention, as well as Clarke. Unfortunately, Anya doesn't help in anything and Clarke seems rather focused on looking at the booth's table. "How was your day?"

"Good. Interesting, I guess." Clarke answers and Anya snorts rolling her eyes hard. Before Lexa could say anything in return, a cheerful really young waitress pops up beside their booth.

"Hi Anya, Lexa!" The girl says happily and then fumbles with the little notepad in her hand. "I was already thinking that you guys would not come."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world, Tris." Anya says lovingly and Clarke looks from the waitress to the tall blonde with a raised eyebrow, seeing how Detective Forrest changed completely in a matter of seconds. "So how're you doing?"

"Great, really!" The teenager says with excitement and notices Clarke for the first time. "Hi! Sorry, I almost forgot to ask your order."

Clarke opens a broad smile for the warm greeting and then ask for the simpler burger with a soda. After a joyful Tris get out of their booth everything returns to be like before.

"Where's Aden?" Clarke asks.

“Oh, he's in another booth with my grandmother." Lexa points to a booth a little away from them. "I don't think he should be here when we talk about the case."

Anya rolls her eyes, knowing that Lexa will only speak up when Clarke become more laid back. She decides to start talking about the issue as fast as possible, "So, say that you at least know something or else all the effort that tiny Lexi here did will be for nothing."

"Anya!" Lexa turns her face quickly to face the blonde. Lexa should have predicted that this would happen, Anya _always_ have to take whatever she thinks is wrong for the humorous and sarcastic side. Right now, Lexa's reconsidering asking for Tris to take Anya the hell away from here.

Anya asks feigning innocence. "Yes, Lexa?"

“Please ignore her, Clarke.”

"Okay..." Clarke clears her throat looking down, she chooses to begin speaking about her father, "A few days ago, my dad and I were traveling. In fact, we are heading towards Polis and we had stopped at a gas station –"

"The gas station a little outside Polis?" Anya asks, her elbows on the booth'’s table and her eyes fixed on Clarke with interest. Lexa isn't much different from her; the only change's that her body is completely rigid on her seat.

Clarke slowly nods, swallowing the two detective's next actions, the two look at each other as if they could talk telepathically.

"When was that?" Anya asks again her voice more inquisitive than before.

"A few days ago." It was Clarke's reply, "About four days ago to be exact."

"Why you didn't contact the police?" Lexa knits her eyebrows. "We could have helped you since that day, Clarke."

Clark's fingers have its own will starting to constant tap on the table and she shrugs. Because it never crossed her mind to seek help, besides who would help people like her and her dad?

"Clarke, it's all right. It's completely understandable." Surprising who said it was Anya and now the tall blonde don't have that close off vibe anymore. And the young Kryptonian seems to be able to breathe easier.

"You're not alone anymore, Clarke." The brunette stops for a moment before proceeding, "What happened when you guys stopped at the station?"

"I had gone into the gas station's store and my dad had stayed outside by the car. Well, at least that's what I thought... so, I walked out of store to look for my dad – it was when I heard the sound of gunshots." Clarke sighs staring at the ceiling, the last thing she needs is start crying on the spot. Clarke knew she had to recall everything and tell Lexa, but it was so hard. The true is that she can just close her eyes and see her dad's lifeless body on the parking lot's ground, being carried away by those fuckers as if he were some sort of sewer rat. "I tried to reach him, but I couldn't... I just couldn't, but I did try. I _tried_ so hard."

"Clarke." Lexa calls the blonde patiently, when this doesn't have a good outcome and the young woman continues mumbling her last words, Lexa's hand creeps over the table quickly grabbing Clarke's unsteady hand. "Clarke, it's ok. I got you." She says with a low, steady voice. Emanating so much safety that Clarke can swallow the words wanting to get out unintentionally.

"Sorry..." The blonde says slightly embarrassed, she can feel a few stares on her and tries to ignore as much as possible.

"It's all right. I know this is hard, but your dad was..." Lexa interrupts herself, hoping that Clarke could reply her.

"Kidnapped." Clarke goes on mournfully, her other hand's gripped hard on her jeans. "They took him."

It was Anya's turn to ask apparently. "Do you remember anything? It can be anything relevant about these men, how they were clothed, if they were using masks..."

"Mmm..." Clarke tilts her head to one side, her lips twitching in concentration. She recalls the man's face who shot her and a few others too. "They were using a strange outfit, like Army Combat clothing, but the colors were different. And I can probably recognize some of them, if I see them on a photo or anything like that."

"Great. This afternoon we can go through the system." Lexa smiles and releases Clarke's hand. Clarke grins right back, thinking that now things seem to be heading to the right path.

“You almost forgot one thing,” Anya cut in. “We have a place to go in this afternoon, you know because of the other case.”

"Damn it." Lexa curses, but a smile soon arises. "But it's only a lead. Can you go alone?"

Anya's eyebrow lifts. "If that means I don't need to keep an eye on you too, then, I'm in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it and I'd love to know what you think of how the story is going. The pace is too slow? Too fast?  
> Anyway, I see you in the next chapter!


	5. Taking unreasonable risks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things gets really hot between Clarke and Lexa, and it all begins with eye contact. But when something happens between these two that's not with eye contact, I'm right?  
> Oh, and Clarke's way too much reckless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay to update.  
> Soo... I made a little change, the organization that took Anya and Lexa's case it's no longer called Mount. It's Weather. I know this sounds silly, but I don't want anyone to be confused in the next chapters.  
> I also just wanted to say (if you ever wondered) that Abby's not Clarke's birth mother, and yeah, Clarke knows it.

"What do you think about this one?" Lexa asks with a tired, muffled voice since her hand's at the corner of her mouth with an elbow on the table of her cubicle. And Clarke can grasp the weariness of it altogether, they're searching through the database over an hour.

Actually, as soon as they arrived Lexa showed up her a Identi-kit, which it's like a collection with basic features to build a suspect's description given by the witness. Unfortunately, after three descriptions given by the blue-eyed woman and nothing matching in the database, they finally gave up using.

"Nope." answers Clarke already worn-out and with that answer Lexa returns to look at the police system database. While Lexa is sitting upright, Clarke is thrown on the chair beside her and she just raises her head slightly to look at the computer screen.

The sound of a phone ringing nearby makes Clarke skip a little bit on the chair looking at the object on the table as her own nemesis. Simply because she was only a step away from sleep in that chair.

"Sorry." Lexa apologize staring at the phone, her girlfriend's name on display. She swallows heavily. "I need to answer this and... it may take a while." And Lexa just know it will be a long and exhaustive conversation and she kind of deserves. Lexa had not called her yesterday at the time that she always calls, but if Costia wanted to talk to her, she herself could have done it. Sometimes, Lexa gets really annoyed for always having to be her who has to make all the effort to contact her busy girlfriend. But then she remembers Costia telling her how much her work in Azgeda Media is important – and, sometimes, from her own parents when she not even asks their opinion on the subject.

And still have the whole matter about Clarke and she just knows that this conversation will be tough for her.

"Take your time." Clarke watches the brunette smile back at her pulling the phone hurriedly and walking to somewhere with no direction. The blonde furrows curiously, breaking her desire to eavesdrop Lexa's conversation with whoever it's.

At times, her inquisitiveness knows no bounds.

Then she looks back at the problem in hand, supposing it wouldn't do any harm if she speeds up the search. The room is pretty much empty and Clarke's very grateful for Lexa's desk be just about in a secluded spot. If it were any other day, the young Kryptonian would deny to use her powers in somewhere so... _open_. What is somewhat ironic as she flew not even a couple of hours ago.

However, anyone who walks in could see.

Clarke jumps from one chair to another after watching two police officers passing through the room to the department's entry. Now that the young woman is all alone, she cracks her knuckles with an optimistic grin. It was time to work. Fast.

Clark begins to browse through with a preternatural speed, her ears attentively listening any noise that can go unnoticed. And for a brief moment, she wonders when she started to get so confident to use her powers like this, so _reckless_. Nothing like her dad taught her, but she is and really that's what matters.

Clarke goes through the entire database in a matter of minutes and oddly looks at the computer screen. Nothing.

She found none of them.

Clarke takes a deep breath and goes through the database another time. After the third time, the young woman doesn't care anymore if someone walks in. Because she couldn't find any of those men and everything seems to come to the surface. Her confusion quickly turns into anger; Clarke gets up from the swivel chair starting to walk from one side to another, enraged.

The blonde could even hear her dad's voice right now, saying how she can't be ruled by anger and how much control she could lose and the right by doing just that. Clarke always wondered how Jake had such patience and has always been in control. Clarke only saw him gets out of control a few times and doesn't seem a little bit like when she spins out of control – which is not very nice.

Clarke has always been proud to have the same personality and characteristics from her father and yes sometimes the blonde's amazed about this. However, the lack of patience about every little thing, she definitely didn't inherit from him. Usually, Jake was there when Clarke runs out of patience, he was always peaceful and trying to make her settle down.

Clarke looks over her side feeling eyes on her, a brown-skinned young man's in a few steps from her and he's really tall, the blonde needs to raise her chin to look at his face.

"Hey, you're fine?" He asks with his eyes searching the place like he could find what made her feel this angry.

"Um, yes." Clarke shakes her head trying to make her anger go away, it was not her nature to take out her anger on other people and Clarke explains pointing in amusement at Lexa's computer, "I just had a disagreement with this computer."

The young cop seems to fully understand as he starts to laugh and it lights up his whole face.

"You're not the only one." He says seeing Clarke's confused face. "It's been a couple of months that this started to happen."

"Oh." Clarke raises an eyebrow while crosses her arms as if she was aloof to the subject, or at least as much as possible. "So, uuh, what do you mean by that?"

Meeting his suspicious gaze, it isn't even news that had not been enough and the tall, young man narrows his eyes at her.

The young cop pauses, his lips were now in a thin line. "I'm sorry, you are...?"

The blonde quickly answers, "Oh, I'm here with Lexa, but well, she had to take a phone call." The young woman points to where she had seen Detective Woods heading as the young man seems to be still waiting for something. She opens a wry smile and finishes, "My name is Clarke, eer, just Clarke."

This, in fact, is a very complicated matter, because _Griffin_ is not her father's surname but her former mother and everywhere she goes, she always has been Clarke Griffin. But here at Polis is different, because apparently _everyone_ knows Abby Griffin. Or, Abby Kane Griffin. Well, Clarke didn't really know if her mother kept her last name or not.

Her given name in Krypton is Clark El and how is already too much confusion with only Griffin, she would rather let that name aside.

"Mmm... yes, yes." The young cop shakes his head as if he had remembered something right now, “Lexa told me briefly. I'm really sorry, my name is Lincoln Woods by the way.”

With an apologetic smile Lincoln extends his hand to shake Clarke's hand.

Clarke shakes the man's hand briefly. "No problem at all. You have no idea how much I'm often mistaken with some kind of delinquent."

"Really?" He replies calmly with a half-smile. "Well, as I said, our database is causing a lot of troubles lately. I'm almost certain that Lexa doesn't know it, because usually I'm the one who does their paperwork."

"What you did to deserve that?"

"Long story short, I bet way too much on some complaint calls."

"Wow." Clarke release with surprise and soon comments about the subject. "I never thought that police officers did that."

Lincoln shrugs. "We just do this sort of thing when the calls are from the same people and pretty absurd." Lincoln leans against the table next to Lexa's desk, probably Anya's desk. "It all started when a man called in tears, saying that woke up with a blue _tail_ and that was when those mutants began to show up. I thought it might be true, so I ended up getting into a bet with some other officers."

Clarke laughs and playfully raises an eyebrow as she asks, "And he had a blue tail?"

"Not really." Lincoln responds the same way, in an amusement touch. "When I got there, he was sleeping on his back snuggling with a bottle of beer and," He pauses with a smirk seeing Clarke's watchful eye and continuing. "A dead fish between his legs."

"Oh my god." Clarke makes a face and can't hold her laughter any longer. "Are you for real?"

The young officer laughs at Clarke's reaction. "I swear."

Lexa returns to the room shortly after, with one of her arms busy with snacks. Just then the brunette looks at her cousin laughing with Clarke and she needs to sigh with relief. Even though Lincoln's not like Anya and will not make Clarke uncomfortable, Lexa still fears of him asking about what she is doing there.

"Linc, hi." She says smiling at him, at the same time she makes her way over to them. "I thought that Gustus had asked you out to patrol, again."

The young man scratches his head nervously, "He tried. I just rather stay here doing the papers."

Lexa just nods, choosing not to get into a conversation like this right in front of Clarke, even more knowing it would be a long talk.

A few months back, Polis Central Bank was being under attacked by two meta-humans. As protocol, Lexa, Anya, Lincoln and some other officers had been called to escort the civilians from there, safely. Everything seemed to be going well, they had already escorted most of the hostages, but the meta-humans were escaping without looking back. The problem was that during the two young mutants' escape, they still had a young woman held hostage.

Lincoln and Anya were more ahead of her, and Lexa only heard what happened after Anya came back with a desperate young woman and an unconscious Lincoln. According to Anya, her cousin ended up losing his head when he saw one of the meta-human hitting the woman and had jumped over the young mutant unguarded. If Anya was not close behind when Lincoln was attacked by another meta-human, Lexa knew that her cousin's wounds would be worse. Lexa really don't know what would have happened to him if he had been burned more than had already been.

It was no secret within the department about how it affected her cousin, to the point of him getting afraid to go out to patrols.

Lexa gives a brief squeeze on Lincoln's shoulder, knowing that there was nothing to say beyond the normal understanding of the silence. And, Lexa is very good at it.

"Well, gotta go back to work." Lincoln smiles at the two women. "It was nice to meet you, _just_ Clarke." He adds the end playfully.

Clarke laughed nervously and replies right away when she sees Lexa's frown face. "It was nice to meet you too, Lincoln."

The young blonde makes no mention of talking about it with Lexa, Clarke just wants to leave the Griffin's surname as far away as possible. The young woman is quite surprised that the brunette didn't ask about her last name, but not that she's complaining. Not at all.

Lexa gets closer to Clarke to dump the snacks in her hand on the desk, while she watches Lincoln getting out of the room and just now that Clarke realizes the snacks that Lexa's holding. Clarke's belly complains, because she isn't eating the required these days and once again she curses her supernatural appetite.

"What was that about?" Detective Woods asks curiously when her cousin's already out of sight. 

Clarke shrugs, "Nothing. I think he was trying to make me feel more comfortable here."

"Good, good." Lexa replied quietly, she doesn't want Clarke getting uncomfortable. The detective knows how much the other officers may be somewhat tough and sometimes they could be interpreted as harsh. "Sorry it took me so long. I just noticed how you kept staring at the vending machine from the corner and..."

"What? I – I... I definitely was not doing that." Clarke stammers embarrassingly, her cheeks blushing immediately. The truth's that not long ago they had lunch with Anya and Aden – that sneaked out of Lexa's grandparents' cabin when Lexa's grandmother went to the toilet and Lexa's grandfather took a little nap. However, Clarke didn't eat as much as she usually needs. What is utter crazy for any human – maybe not for a meta-human, but anyway.

Lexa laughs a little by Clarke's embarrassment face and says sarcastically, "Clarke, every five minute you looked at the vending machine, as if it would create legs and come to you."

"A girl can dream." The blonde mumbles timidly while the blush in her cheeks becomes crimson, and she brings her hands to her face trying to hid the deep blush – that seems to get even warmer. "I, uhh, kind of have a big appetite."

That has Lexa smiling and laughing, so much that her cheeks aches, because Clarke's very cute when she's embarrassed and the detective couldn't find the strength inside herself to stop playing with the blonde. Lexa don't know what is, but everything with Clarke seems so bright and she can feel so free near her. The argument with her girlfriend totally out of Lexa's head at the moment.

"Oh, Clarke. I realized that when you got out of the interrogation room with Anya's chocolate."

"Hey!" Clarke complains removing her hands from her face frowning, "You guys who put me in a room for hours with nothing to eat!"

Lexa snorts, "It was not even an hour, Clarke."

"Uh," Clarke frowns narrowing her eyes to Lexa. "Are you sure? I could swear I had spent a whole day inside that goddamn room."

"You have to stop letting your belly dictate your actions, Clarke." Lexa says and Clarke's surprised she could manage say that with a totally straight face after smile so much.

"Phew." Clarke laughs sitting in the chair next to Lexa, who is leaning against her desk. "If I did that, I wouldn't have get in the car yesterday."

Lexa looks thoughtful for a while and she asks bashfully, "So, you only got in the car because of the hot dog?" The detective does not understand why she's being shy, let alone asking this.

"No," Clarke admits and suddenly feeling bold and defiant, "Probably had to do with the gorgeous woman inside." Clarke makes eye contact with the young detective the whole time that she's talking and swallows hard at the end, seeing how the sparkling green eyes is watching her close. Kind of like when Clarke was in that damned interrogation room, the only difference is that this time Clarke doesn't divert her gaze.

If anyone were there right now, they would think that the two were having a really odd chat, but the two young woman are not really paying attention to other thing besides themselves. There's a big pause and they keep looking at each other, Lexa not so much leaning on her desk anymore, more like she was leaning forward, and Clarke isn't in the best of the positions.

The only thing that Clarke can look's the attractive brunette in front of her. Lexa's tan legs that looked like they went on for miles, the long hair with hundreds of systematic and perfect braids. The fact that Lexa's wearing a gray skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse with a gray blazer makes Clarke's head flip out even more.

She can't deny any longer her intense attraction to the detective and this is not something astonishing. Really. The young Kryptonian was attracted to a lot of women and man physically, but often women.

Sexy brunettes in particular.

But Clarke's not just attracted by her outward appearance, but by her inner personality as well. Lexa is something entirely otherworldly. She's an incredibly kind, generous person, who gives her own time to others people before even think of herself.

"I have a girlfriend." Lexa throws out quickly, as if she had suddenly found out exactly that. She turns her eyes down and clear her throat that is rather dry, her blush having nowhere to hide as she is right besides Clarke.

Clarke is not better than Lexa as she straightens in the chair, but her blue eyes can't hide how much she is surprised about what the other woman just told. Well, she didn't even wonder if Lexa had a girlfriend, but again she didn't know that Lexa was gay. The blonde tries not to look too much in the feeling of disappointment sinking into her gut, this isn't a good time to start having feelings for someone, much less to someone who is helping her without asking anything in return.

" _Oh_ , t – that's something." Clarke replies looking at Lexa's desk.

Lexa clear her throat looking everywhere but the blue eyes, when the tension in the room became too much uneasy for her, she says in a low voice. "I thought maybe we could take a break..."

Clarke nods quietly, "Yeah... that seems like a plan."

Clarke takes one of the snacks on the table randomly and then the corners of her mouth stretch into a forced smile. The young woman feels so foolish right now, she should not have flirted with Lexa – a _one-side_ flirt, she recalls bitterly.

 _Congrats, Griffin._ She thought to herself. _Now you made everything strange in your first attempt of friendship in freaking years._

She doesn't know what to say and her lack of words can be interpreted as anger and, she rather, doesn't want Lexa thinking that way. However, the young Kryptonian vaguely thinks she should be asking more about this out of the blue girlfriend. "Um, what's her name?"

Lexa looks confused for a second, not understanding of where this question had come. But, soon enough, Lexa replies endearingly with a small, proud smile. "Costia Green. She works in Azgeda Media as one of the youngest general counsel of Nia Azgeda."

Clarke smiles with that, because obviously Lexa's dating someone amazing. She deserves it, Clarke really didn't want to get between them and now she's very happy that Lexa said about her girlfriend.

"Nice," Clarke crumples her face, "But you talk as if I should know who this Nia Azgeda is."

Lexa's twinkling green eyes widen, as she asks, "You don't know who she is?"

Clarke's only response was push her head back up shaking her vigorously. Lexa presses her lips together in a thin line, she was never a big fan of Nia. The young detective had noticed that the old millionaire woman always made her girlfriend solve the various problems that arose inside the company and Lexa knows that if anyone was armed and ready for the task, it was Costia. However, Nia made her girlfriend work way too much, so she worries constantly about Costia's health.

Therefore, the young brunette begins to tell about the powerful CEO of Azgeda Media. She doesn't say about Costia to Clarke, because after this tense moment Lexa doesn't want to comment about her girlfriend.

Maybe later, besides they are friends, right?

 

* * *

 

"Everything is fine between us, right?" Lexa draws the blonde attention while the two are getting ready to leave the police department. She does not know where to start, things between them got really weird after she told Clarke about having a girlfriend and the brunette does not want things to be like this. Lexa already feels Clarke as her friend, which is somewhat impressive since she has a very closed circle of friends.

Not for not wanting, her family has always been highly active in this area. Always wanting to inspect her relationships and who Lexa puts her trust on, and they always considering everyone else as strangers. Lexa understand or at least she tries to, but sometimes she feels like an infant in front of her foster parents. What Lexa understands is that her family have one of the world's largest companies – something that her parents always seems to brag about _every_ chance given – and wanting or not she'll always be affected because of it.

Lexa stood there awkwardly for a few minutes until Clarke turned to her with a smile sheepish.

"I hope so." Says Clarke, scratching back of her neck. She just wants to make things clear between the two of them, then she bluntly adds, "We're friends, eh?"

"Friends, totally." Lexa repeats with a nod and she's glad that they handle this situation well, and they on the same page too.

Just like that, they're leaving and having a normal conversation that makes both of them relieved. Clarke can't stop herself of thinking how them can get back in harmony so quickly, she never had any type of relationship like this one before. So easy. That's maybe because she never had a _real_ friendship, and the fact that Lexa's dating someone has nothing to do with her heart tightening painfully.

The detective and together with the young Kryptonian are already stepping into the entrance hall, when a rough masculine voice makes they stop their path.

"Woods, I didn't know you were still –" Lexa looks over her shoulder at the robust man. She gulps audibly. It seems that today everyone will try to talk some sense into her, not that she needs. She doesn't need. One thing she learned from her own uncle Gustus, it's that she needs to follow her instincts. Yes, Lexa knows that it may sound crazy to let a complete stranger in her own home, but let the blonde in a public park is off the table.

Even more if the same people who kidnapped Clarke's father might be after her. She promised to protect these people, Clarke included.

"Captain." Lexa says automatically as the man comes closer to her.

Gustus seems to spend some time just watching Clarke, as if she were some specimen to be observed with caution. Well, he's not wrong. Although, he probably thinks she's a bad news.

Delinquent. _Again_.

Gustus return to look at Lexa with a forced smile, and it struck into Clarke that he looks a little different. Though she thinks it's probably just because he's wearing casual clothes. He seems more relaxed, a little less severe from the last time that Clarke saw him in the Police Department.

"I was not aware that you were with someone." He says, nodding to Clarke formally and shortly. "Detective, could you maybe join me?"

Lexa promptly nods, knowing full well that it will be the best for her if she simply follows her uncle and really she can't even find her voice at this moment. Gustus isn't only her captain, he's like a father figure to her. Probably more than her foster father. Lexa has never been on the receiving end of his scolding look, and it was enough a fight with her girlfriend over the phone. She sighs resigned to her future of listening an exhausted and fiery speech about still being on the case.

Lexa takes a few steps toward the man and looks quickly at the blonde.

"I'll be right back." She says.

The detective turns to make her way to Gustus – who didn't even wait for her, and is almost in his office. But, a warm hand holds her wrist before she could start moving again.

"Wait." Clarke bites her lower lip Lexa looks at her questioningly. "You'll be fine, right?"

Her eyes narrow slightly as she watches blue eyes filled with concern, and feels her heart thudding against her ribcage. It makes her think back to what happened in the room where she works every single day, Lexa just could not stop thinking about how Clarke looked so... _familiar_. Maybe it's her head playing tricks with her. However, this feeling remains whenever she finds herself making eye contact with Clarke, which is often. The detective had also tried in a-not-effective way not seem to be affected by Clarke's look.

"He can't do anything with me." Says Lexa with a soft, low voice. "Technically, Anya didn't need my help."

Clarke nods.

Once Lexa is within the Department Captain's office, Clarke stands there alone with nothing to do and feeling a little out of place. She briefly thinks about going to sit in one of the chairs, but think better of it. Besides, Clarke sat for hours already. She watches people getting in and out of Police Department with little care, apparently it's a popular place. Clarke giggles a little seeing a woman asking for Lincoln to arrest her son for a few days, the tall young man looks totally uncomfortable and out of place just like her.

Clarke stops paying attention when she locks her blue eyes on a man with hurry. Her eyes widen and she stares into the distance at the same man she'd seen helping to carry the nearly dead body of her father. Clarke can't hear a thing, except a buzzing sound in her ears. Everything seems in slow motion, because _it's_ him. The young Kryptonian will _never_ forget the faces of the men who captured her dad.

Clarke's legs move without even having to put too much effort into it. The man is already outside, running more than walking and Clarke can't stay there. Almost off the place, she looks back from where she was standing still a minute ago, but her focus is no longer there. The blonde knew she could turn back, talk to Lexa about what she saw, and go with her after the man.

But, she _can't_ do that.

Not when her eyes are burning up, her teeth tightly locking together, her hands closed into a fist. She's flushed with hot, hidden anger involuntarily surfacing through her entire body.

Well, even if Clarke is nearly out of herself, she didn't want to leave without giving any warning to Lexa, she's not about to let the detective worrying over her. So, passing through Lincoln on the exit she asks him to tell Lexa that something unexpected came up and she will go back to the apartment by herself.

At least, Clarke will try.

Her thoughts are all over the place as the heavy soles of her boots hits the street's pavement and she hurries to covers her head with her hood. Her will of confront him in the back of her mind, knowing it's a stupid plan, besides being reckless and leading to nowhere. There's just too many people walking on the city's street, she'll not hurt anyone by accident.

The man doesn't get in any car nor cab, he just keeping walking in a rush and Clarke follows him, giving enough space between them and using her vision to guide in the strange street of Polis. For a second there, the blonde thinks that the man doesn't know exactly to where he's going, because he keeps walking and looking from one side to another as if he were unsure of the way. Or maybe because he's afraid of being followed?

Well, too bad for him.

It is already happening and Clarke's not slowing down now.

The man comes onto a stop on the side of a street lamp, in front of a small, darkened building. She sees as he tilts his head back, like he was searching for something in the skies. Clarke looks at same place that he's staring, but there's nothing besides beautiful stars lighting up the wild night of Polis.

Clarke moves into a back alley by the side of the building, watching anxiously to know where he's heading. Just at this moment that she wonders where he has on the Police Department. The entry of Polis Police Department had two doors, one going right at the desks and cubicles of police officers, consequently at the Captain's officer and at some interrogation rooms. The other part, Clarke didn't really know. Besides, she'd never ventured to that part of the department. _Yet_. Because, yeah, Clarke may or not may have gone through the cubicles and looked closely at Gustus officer. The young woman doesn't know why, but she got this weird feeling that the Captain of the Police Department is always watching her apprehensively.

Even though she'd only seen him twice.

"Vince." A swarthy man with a small mustache calls as the man who she's being following _finally_ pass the doorstep. The man who kidnapped her father seems totally caught off guard, but the other doesn't seem to care too much. "The payment is late. _Again_. You know I'm reasonably, I don't ask what the hell you do that needs this crap building, and you fucking pay it."

"I – I'm sorry, Andrew." This Vince guy says and he seems truly sorry. "I'll give you the money on Monday, I promise."

"Ok." Andrew sighs heavy, giving no sign of getting out of the place, he just massages his temple with his hand. Vince steps slowly around the other man and Andrew starts to talk again, "You know that this is not a place for a kid, right?"

Vince freezes halfway, his eyes widen in shock. Unlike Clarke's eyes that widen and fear fills them up.

"Ho – What are you talking about, Andrew?" Vince inquires giving a backward glance at his old friend, fiddling on the edge of his shirt.

The man raises his hand up in surrender and tells, "Hey, there's no need for that. The little brat was sitting in the second floor apartment, and I was just looking for you. I'm not gonna lie –"

Clarke doesn't wait to hear the rest of the conversation, if there is really a child there, she needs to know if the child's being forced to stay there. The young Kryptonian remember Lexa talking about a child being also kidnapped, her blood runs cold because of that.

Glancing up and down the streets, Clarke sees that there's no movement. She quietly and quickly jumps up to the second floor apartment by the fire escape, already noticing that the window's open. Clarke frowns at first, but it's less trouble for her.

The young Kryptonian gulps a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart as her mind tries to take her back at _that_ day without her consent.

 _Get in, take the kid, get out._ Clarke says to herself as she climbs her way inside the apartment through the open window. It's definitely not the best of the plans, but she needs to do something if the child is there against her will. The young woman gets in half expecting to find some of those bastards in there and already prepared to defend herself, but what she saw instead made her stop dead in her tracks. She could go through a hundred scenarios in her head about what would be waiting for her inside the building, yet none of them prepared her enough for what has actually there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... please don't hate me! 
> 
> I hope you like it and I'd love to know what you think of how the story is going. Anyway, I see you in the next chapter!


End file.
